Read Online The Genius Files #4 by Dan Gutman - Free Book Online Page A

interesting places worth seeing. Inside the Ferrari, a great debate commenced to determine which sites were worth stopping at, and which ones should be bypassed.
    Dr. McDonald cast his vote for a side trip to Bentonville, where Sam Walton opened up the first Walmart in 1962.
    â€œThere’s a museum there now,” Mrs. McDonald said, reading from her guidebook.

    â€œGee, what a shock,” Coke said with his usual eye roll.
    He voted to visit the town of Eureka Springs, where the Museum of Fake Frogs is located. According to the guidebook, the old man who runs it has beenaccumulating frog collectibles for fifty years, and now he’s up to six thousand frog-themed items.
    Coke insisted that anything to do with frogs was cool, but if he couldn’t go there, he would instead be willing to see (and use) one of the world’s only double-decker outhouses, which is in Dover, Arkansas.
    Don’t believe me? Go ahead and look it up. That’s why they invented Google.
    Pep was always fascinated by morbid curiosities such as the Donner Party, settlers who resorted to cannibalism to survive the winter of 1846 in the Sierra Nevada. So when she heard about the Boggy Creek Monster in Fouke, Arkansas, she was intrigued.
    The monster, sort of a southern version of Bigfoot, is supposed to be seven feet tall and hairy all over. It has been known to kill and eat chickens, cattle, dogs, and livestock, if not small children.
    It was highly unlikely that they would actually catch a glimpse of the Boggy Creek Monster, so Pep said her second choice was to visit Crater of Diamonds State Park, in Murfreesboro, Arkansas. It’s the only diamond-producing site in the world that’s open to the public. In fact, in 2007, a thirteen-year-old girl found a 2.9-carat diamond there.
    Mrs. McDonald, as always, was on the lookout for new material she could use in Amazing but True. Butit was difficult to choose from the wealth of oddball tourist attractions in Arkansas.
    â€œMaybe we should go to Alma,” she suggested. “It’s the Spinach Capital of the World.”
    â€œNo more capitals!”
    â€œWe could go to Stuttgart and see the World’s Championship Duck Calling Contest,” said Mrs. McDonald.
    There was just too much to see in Arkansas. Obviously, they couldn’t do it all. There are only twenty-four hours in a day, as they say, and you’ve got to sleep sometime.
    The discussion continued as the McDonalds drove past Lake Hamilton and through the little towns of Royal, Joplin, and Hurricane Grove. The Caddo Mountains were in the distance now, and soon they were deep within Ouachita National Forest and Queen Wilhelmina State Park, drinking in the spectacular scenery.
    Sometimes we spend so much time and energy thinking about where we want to go that we don’t notice where we happen to be.
    The McDonald family was still discussing which sites to visit in Arkansas when a sign appeared at the side of the road. . . .

Chapter 10
TOP OF THE WORLD
    S o much for Arkansas. They crossed the Oklahoma state line.
    Spontaneously—and inevitably—the entire McDonald family burst into the song “Oklahoma!” from the 1955 Rogers and Hammerstein musical of the same name. I would print the lyrics for you here, but we would have to pay a lot of money for the rights, so forget that idea. YouTube it, and you can hear the whole song for free.
    â€œWoo-hoo!” Coke shouted when the family couldn’t remember the words to the second verse. “We’re inthe Sooner State, baby! Hey, ya know why Oklahoma is called the Sooner State?”
    â€œNobody cares!” Pep shouted.
    â€œI’ll bet you guys can’t name four things that were invented in Oklahoma,” Coke said.
    â€œHere we go,” grumbled Pep.
    â€œGenetically engineered soybeans?” guessed Dr. McDonald.
    â€œNo, it was the shopping cart, the aerosol can, the parking meter, and the automated twist