Thursday, Oct. 25

We were up at 7:30 this morning, after retiring fairly early last night. Following breakfast, we took turns getting ready for the day, and then left camp to go on a tour of a local seven-acre garden open to the public.

The garden features native plants along a winding, paved, path that crosses a couple of bridges. It was a lovely morning for strolling, overcast and just cool enough for jackets.

Took lots of photos, but drats, at the end of the tour, I discovered my camera battery was dead. I hated this, since I wanted to go to the town square to get a shot of that ginko biloba tree.

When we left the garden, we set off to find the Walmart museum. This proved to be a challenge when we got completely off track and traveled several miles out of our way, before finding our way back to the town square, where, it turned out, the museum was located, in an old Ben Franklin five and dime store.

The front of the museum features an old fashioned five and dime type store, with many items that we old folks remember from our younger days, but at prices that are nothing like we remember. Penny candy, for instance, is now ten cent candy, with each piece shrunk to no more than a tidbit. The prices are dear on vintage-like toys, too.

The museum itself takes visitors through the history of the business from its inception to the current time. The old truck that Sam Walton drove is the centerpiece of the museum. This is an interactive museum, suited to families.

We were ready to head back to camp after the tour...none too soon, since the temperature suddenly dropped, the wind whipped up, and it began to rain.

The miserable turn of weather was perfect for a soup lunch, though, so I heated the squash soup, and served it with pumpkin muffins, with cream cheese for the muffins, and sour cream for the soup.

We rested for the afternoon, with Mother napping on the couch, Hubbie reading his novel, and Sis and I playing with our cell phones.

Around 4 p.m., Hubbie, Mother, and I headed on the forty-minute drive to Hubbie's daughter's home. Sis begged off, wanting to stay at camp and complete chores on her laptop.

We had a good visit with Hubbie's daughter, son-in-law, granddaughter, and two great-grandsons. At this house, there is a porch that overlooks a forest vista, at the center of which is a large barn. In the evening dusk, the autumn trees rose out of the mist, making for a lovely photographic setting.

The two boys are live wires, and tonight they insisted that Hubbie play a game of Uno cards with them. They are very young, and don't quite grasp the finer points of the game, so they make up rules as they go along.

When the game had gone on as long as their grandmother wanted, she announced that supper was ready, and they should put the cards away. "No!" the older boy said, "Not until I win!"

At last, after both the boys declared themselves winners, the game was over, and Daughter served a supper of homemade vegetable beef soup, with a choice of crackers and cheese, or cornbread. She also served cheese sticks. For dessert, she served chocolate cake. The only thing lacking was coffee. We should have brought a pump pot of it with us, because we know that Daughter doesn't like it, and never serves it.

We were back at camp around 8 p.m. We didn't lose much time getting ready for bed.