The visitors centers was average, but the pallid Sturgeon tour was really interesting. Head to the…read morevisitors' center first, then get a cup of fish food on your way outside to feed the trout.

Great place for a stroll and to feed fish. Inside the Visitor Center there are a couple aquariums,…read moreone of which has a tunnel the kids can crawl into. There's a map that lights up and just some really good info all over the place. The people working, or volunteering, made time to show us some items in the display cases and, since there were only 3 of us at the time, allowed us to touch a few. Overall it's a good and educational experience. We enjoy visiting and we all learn something new with each visit.

The city of Joplin is a nice sized town for a small town community!…read moreIt is near the borders of Kansas and Oklahoma! I remember Joplin being a pit stop for my family driving from Kansas City to Coffeyville!!! Joplin's history is the famous Route 66 and the outlaws Bonnie and Clyde!! There were zinc and lead mining back in the day as well! Fast forward to May 22, 2011, Joplin had a devastating EF-5 Tornado that went thru their town. They made headlines on their coming together and rebuilding their community. For a small town, it has many restaurants, coffee shops, grocery stores, shopping, hardware stores, churches, and much more. It's a short drive to Springfield for another option! I've enjoyed my visit! The people are very friendly. The town is beautiful.

At the beginning of the race I was Joplin for position. But now I'm just glad to still be in the…read morerace. A very long time ago I had a very good friend in Joplin. He arranged for me to play my first concert in the city and it seems like the whole town showed up. Afterwards I spent part of the night canoodling with a beautiful spectacular girl who I still think about to this day. It was one of those magical nights and I have never forgotten it. Not long after my visit my friend passed away. It's very confusing and complicated but it was ruled a suicide. It was pretty grisly and horrible. I still have good friends that live here but there is a shadow over the town and my heart ever since. Then a couple of months later a devastating tornado wiped out a huge portion of the town and caused many casualties. There will always be a special place in my heart for Joplin and someday I look forward to my return.

a fantastic stop along Route 66. They put a fun twist on a old Texaco filling station from 1939…read more Walking in your made to feel like your family. It's filled with unique finds. They make it family friendly with characters from Cars. And in the upcoming months adding a personalized Muffler Man

Great stop on Route 66 in the small town of Galena! Cool photo ops, shirts, and the owners are…read moresuper nice! Bring a license plate for the wall. They also host local photoshoots and events. We stop here every time we drive by on Route 66. Veteran owned

They called me about a man needing bonded here in Marie's and was very helpful to the man, even at…read more2am! Great customer service and funny too!

I looked into hosting a party at the Phelp's House, and was very excited about it, but ended up…read morehaving to cancel due to the house manager, Tommie Baldwin, being very rude and not honoring certain things in the contract. When I first reached out about renting the house I specifically asked when the final headcount was needed (rent is based on your number of guests), Tommie told me we pay rent the day of and it's based off RSVPs. Originally, I was planning for around 50, but found my list had grown by the time I took a tour. The day of the tour there was 4 in our group, all of us are planning the party together and so obviously some of the others had questions/comments as we went along. As we were touring it became very obvious that Tommie was very particular about some things, which is fine, but also not very professional. At one point she realized the person that had rented the night before forgot to change a thermostat by three degrees, and said "hmm, I'll have to think about how much of their deposit to keep" right in front of us all! So, there doesn't seem to be a schedule or table she goes by when determining if a deposit should be returned, it seems to be based off her mood at the time. We had inquired about using certain chairs that the contract lists as available to all renters, and we were met with "Why? Why do you want those when there are plenty of these others" in an incredibly rude tone. I asked if parking was allowed at the church next door, she responded with "That is a school, not a church!" with more attitude than was necessary. For the record, the building says "church", so...yep. We went ahead and signed a contract and left a deposit check before leaving after the tour. One of the other people with me asked if we would be given a copy of the signed contract, and her response was "Why would I do that? You have a copy of the blank one, it would be a waste of my time to copy every contract. We then asked if we could take a picture of it, and she said we could of the front and signature pages, so we went ahead and took pictures of the whole thing. That should have been our sign to say never mind, but we were very excited about the space. The very next day I was contacted by Tommie saying she was uncomfortable going forward with the contract unless my answers to her questions were satisfactory. I was confused because our party is nothing out of the ordinary. She was upset our guest list had almost tripled since I had first inquired about the place, even though I had previously addressed that in an email. She was also upset to find out it would be a joint birthday party, why that mattered I'm not sure. The number of people being celebrated shouldn't matter when rent is based off the number of guests. She then accused us of trying to throw a wedding disguised as a birthday party to avoid paying for the wedding packages all because we had asked if we could use the gold chairs and brown chairs mentioned in the contract. I was floored. The contract clearly lists those items as available for use to anyone who rents. According to Tommie those chairs are reserved for weddings only and are not to leave the third floor, but like I said, that's not how the contract reads, so she tried to modify an already signed contract by saying we weren't allowed to use them, even though it would have been our responsibility to return them to where we got them. I informed her she should probably have the wording in the contract changed because there were several inconsistencies. Following the phone call Tommie told me she would hold our check for a week before depositing it in case we decided on a different venue, which is exactly what we did. I emailed her back asking when I could pick the check up, and after a few snarky responses she said she would let me know the next day when she would be available. The next day comes around and the only thing I had received from her was another snarky email. She ignored a follow up from me asking what time I could get the check; she also ignored a phone call and voicemail from me. She waited until 4:40pm to text me saying she'd left the check on the porch and sent a picture of the location. There was no "can you pick up during these times?", no "are you okay with me leaving the check on the porch?"; it was incredibly unprofessional. I tried finding a way to contact someone else from the Carthage Historical Preservation (the group that owns the house), but unfortunately all ways of communication lead back to Tommie. The whole experience was incredibly disappointing. The house itself is amazing and I definitely recommend taking a tour if you're into history and historical houses, but definitely tread lightly with the house manager if you are looking to have an event there, know that she is not a fan of people actually reading the contract and expecting her to honor it, there is no other contact person, and document everything.

Such a very cool & unique house. Great for small get togethers such as a small wedding reception…read more This is actually where my wedding reception was held. If you rent the upstairs ballroom it was more money so we opted just for the main floor plus the wedding party got to use the 2nd floor to change. Definitely a cool place if nothing else to take a tour of and learn some of the history.

Beautiful place. Local Landmark and point of interest. A great place to walk or ride a bike…read more Usually a lot of wildlife including ducks, geese and occasionally a bald eagle can be seen in the area.