Wal-Mart...WHO KNEW????

Arrived in Bentonville AK today.....last night we saw a special on Sam Walton on TV, what could be more timely than that? Turns out today's tour was of Sam Walton's first store in Bentonville, a little 5 and dime store. He was a persistent person! Just goes to show you hard work and persistence pays off, you can be successful financially if you are willing to work and sacrifice.

Our tour guide told us that she learned 3 things living in an area that produced 5 billionaires

1. Frugality
2. Persistence
3. Focus

I thought this was interesting. The Wal-Mart family is worth 280.8 billion $$. To put it into perspective, she told us 1 billion $$$ is 1,000 millions........WOW!!!

The tour guide's mother was a seamstress, she used to patch the jeans the 3 Walton boys wore about every 2-3 weeks. At one point her mother pointed out to Helen that the jeans had to have something left to patch. Mrs. Walton told her to just do the best she could. Apparently she watched every dime......which I believe is how they keep their billions.

All in all, it was a very interesting first day on the trip.

There are 3 billionaires from this area:

1. J.B. Hunt
2. Tyson
3. Wal-Mart

Sam Walton was the one in first place......they have a Wal-Mart museum here that we walked thru that I found to be extremely interesting, I could have stayed there much longer.

Tonight we ate at Bill Clinton's favorite restaurant, AQ chicken. It was good, the service impeccable!

Tomorrow is a train ride, I'm excited about that. Really enjoying the time spent with Jim and Joyce.