April 26: Bentonville
Today was a rest and not a rest day. Bayer had arranged for me to speak to a group of about 220 ninth grade students from a local junior high school. There was also an interview with a local newspaper. It was a day of rest away from the bicycle, but it was a busy, tiring day. Did I mention that we also went to visit the Pea Ridge National Military Park and also visited Walmart #1 (the very first Walmart store) because I heard from a reliable source that they still stocked the home A1C tests that I’ve been searching for in the past week or so. I recently learned that the manufacturer of this test (the only one of it’s kind on the market) recently discontinued the product. That’s why they’ve been so difficult to find.
So we went to Walmart #1 and I asked the pharmacist there if they still had any. He said they definitely did and went to show me where they were, but when we got to that shelf, there were none there. So close! I’ll just keep trying until I get tired of trying I suppose and then I’ll just visit a local diabetes clinic and have them do an A1C test for me. In any case, it’s not that I’m concerned about my A1C, it’s just that I’m curious where it’s at right now with all the cycling I’m doing. My normal range of A1C readings is about 5.7-6.0%. My feeling is that it has probably dropped by a couple of tenths of a percent, so it would be interesting to know for sure.
Our host while are in the Bentonville area is Paul Barney, an account manager for Bayer. Before the event at the school, we had a nice visit and lunch. We learned that it’s a small world because he used to live in Salt Lake City and his wife graduated from the University of Utah. She grew up not more than a mile from where we now live. Her major was Marketing and Pat and I both used to work at the business school at the University of Utah. Paul graduated from Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. I used to work at Weber State.
Paul got us to and from the junior high school, gave a quick tour of Bentonville, and gave us directions to a number of other interesting local attractions. At the junior high school, he introduced me and gave me a very nice congratulatory letter from Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee. It was such an honor and very rewarding that people around the country recognize the importance of the message we are trying to share through The Dream Tour.