Week long car trip

[iris lilies]

I spent a week in Southern Missouri and Arkansas doing garden club and iris show activities. I judged two iris shows in .Arkansas

Since I was in the area and had a day to kill, I went to the Crystal Bridges art museum in Bentonville, Arkansas. It was started 10 years ago by Alice Walton, Sam Walton‘s daughter. She’s a billionaire. It is quite an ambitious project with multiple buildings connected by “bridges “carefully sited in Arkansas nature space. The art collection was nice. I saw the big Georgia O’Keefe painting of Jimson weed that the museum had paid $44 million for recently. The temporary exhibit on display was KAWS who is a contemporary artist with graffiti roots. It is dumb, but the exhibit was extensive.

Bentonville is quite an upscale little town.

The Iris shows in Searcy and in Hot Springs had nice sections of Louisiana Iris which I don’t see much of around here. They are so elegant!

[catherine]

That sounds like a really fun trip! I have been exploring Georgia O'Keefe these days in the course of research for my writing project. I learned that she found her "sense of place" in New Mexico (as opposed to the northern midwest where she grew up), which anyone who knows her art would have easily figured out. I do love her art.

What a great opportunity you took advantage of! Getting to travel AND judge irises!

I am planning a 5-day trip with my daughter in the summer. She will be between chemo and surgery at that point, so we thought it would be a good time to take a break and get out of Dodge. We originally signed up for a Ram Dass retreat in Boone NC, but it's very expensive, and we were not confident we would enjoy it enough to match the price, so we're sticking closer to home and creating our own retreat. If any of you guys who live in the Northeast (eh-hem, rosa?) can throw out suggestions of unique, soul-satisfying spots to look into, let me know.

[Tybee]

That sounds like a really fun trip! I have been exploring Georgia O'Keefe these days in the course of research for my writing project. I learned that she found her "sense of place" in New Mexico (as opposed to the northern midwest where she grew up), which anyone who knows her art would have easily figured out. I do love her art.

What a great opportunity you took advantage of! Getting to travel AND judge irises!

I am planning a 5-day trip with my daughter in the summer. She will be between chemo and surgery at that point, so we thought it would be a good time to take a break and get out of Dodge. We originally signed up for a Ram Dass retreat in Boone NC, but it's very expensive, and we were not confident we would enjoy it enough to match the price, so we're sticking closer to home and creating our own retreat. If any of you guys who live in the Northeast (eh-hem, rosa?) can throw out suggestions of unique, soul-satisfying spots to look into, let me know.

How about Lily Dale in upstate New York? I was thinking of trying to go there this summer, as have been wanting to for several years now.

[pinkytoe]

I would like to visit Crystal Bridges. Drove to Taos for a weekend visit last fall. Our bi-annual road trip to Central TX is coming up since DH doesn't like to fly. Driving through the panhandle is a weird experience with Trump and save the babies signs galore. Right around Happy, Tx there is a church with a giant Jesus on a cross inside a glass box which serves as a halfway point. Cotton fields as far as you can see. The weather can be scary crazy any time of year. So flat that the roads flood or the hail comes out of nowhere.

[nswef]

Pinkytoe, What a great description of the panhandle! Reminds me that I do not ever want to travel there!!!

[nswef]

I just read about LilyDale and it looks like a restful, peaceful place with reasonable prices.

[Tradd]

That does sound like a really nice trip. I much prefer road trips.

[KayLR]

Lucky thing this was scheduled when it was rather than during the recent tornado events. My sister lives south of Little Rock and lost $150,000 in property damage. Three injured horses and lost barn cat. The barn came down on the horses.

For the next tornado, they only had a stable for them, so they brought b them in their brick house to wait it out.

They're moving back to the PNW asap.

[littlebittybobby]

okay-----it's good to hear someone confess to getting out to drive-n-eat for a whole week! Just DRIVE, for something to "do". But yeah---the OP failed to post pictures and a detailed description of the yummy rest-o-rant meals they stopped to eat. Did all the places you stopped at have clean restrooms? Maybe that's gonna be part two, here. Can you elaborate and expand on this?

[iris lilies]

okay-----it's good to hear someone confess to getting out to drive-n-eat for a whole week! Just DRIVE, for something to "do". But yeah---the OP failed to post pictures and a detailed description of the yummy rest-o-rant meals they stopped to eat. Did all the places you stopped at have clean restrooms? Maybe that's gonna be part two, here. Can you elaborate and expand on this?

The point of this trip was not driving. The point was garden club and iris stuff, and an automobile was necessary to go there.

I don’t much like car trips and wont nrmally drive more than 6 hours at a time. But The geography of these events supported six hours or less in between stops.

the restaurant meals were pretty much mediocre-to-awful.

next time I’m gone that long, I’m going to bring cans of tomato soup and crackers because these days every hotel room has a microwave oven and a refrigerator.

[rosarugosa]

Catherine: What a great idea to spend some restorative time with DD!

I think the Berkshires could be described as soul-satisfying. There are wonderful gardens: The Mount, Berkshire Botanical Gardens, Naumkeag. There are excellent museums: The Clark, MA MOCA, Norman Rockwell (we haven't been to Rockwell but have heard good things). There are wonderful parks: Ashintully, Natural Bridge State Park, Mt. Greylock, Bash Bish Falls. Places we like to stay are Black Swan Inn (have to get a lakeview room), The Guest House at Field Farm, Oak n Spruce (timeshare resort, so they will try to sell you, but you can get good accommodations inexpensively in a nice area).

I also loved where we stayed last year at The Old Mill Inn in Hatfield MA. It's a very quiet town, but is just outside of Northampton which has a lots of nice shopping and dining options. We really enjoyed the greenhouses at Smith College, Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory, and the Three Sisters Sanctuary.

If either of those areas seem appealing, I would be glad to answer any questions or provide more details.

[catherine]

Thank you, rosa!! I do have the Berkshires on my short list. The years I was 12 and 13, we went on family vacations there at a sober vacation place called Bear Rock Lodge. I don't believe it's there anymore. It was across the lake from Camp Hi-Rock, where my oldest brother camped. It was so great--I have so many good memories of it. Mom and I would sneak away, leave my brothers at their ping-ponging, and go shopping in Great Barrington.

That is also where I sat on the deck overlooking the lake reading Gone With the Wind non-stop until I was finished. The camp leader jokingly asked me on Thursday of our vacation week to write him an essay when I got home--"What I Did on My Summer Vacation," because I did very little hiking, swimming and boating that week!

Tybee, I told DD about LilyDale, so that is under consideration as well. Thank you for the suggestion!

ETA:
Hey, I learned that Bear Rock Lodge is still there! It's part of Camp Hi-Rock.

Here is a picture of exactly the view I had from the deck throughout my Gone With the Wind reading vacation!

https://camphirock.smugmug.com/Camp-Lodges-and-Cabins/n-mJLWN2/i-fsjT6TN/A

[iris lilies]

Lucky thing this was scheduled when it was rather than during the recent tornado events. My sister lives south of Little Rock and lost $150,000 in property damage. Three injured horses and lost barn cat. The barn came down on the horses.

For the next tornado, they only had a stable for them, so they brought b them in their brick house to wait it out.

They're moving back to the PNW asap.

oh that’s right you did mention the terrible damage in an Arkansas tornado. that’s too bad.

[nswef]

We've been to the Berkshires twice and would go back. Don't forget the Eric Carle museum near Smith College. It is small, pleasant and has lovely art.

[happystuff]

My dad lived in Bentonville before he died. We've been to several of the places mentioned, plus. My recollections are of having a good time.

[rosarugosa]

Catherine: That's a beautiful view. Isn't if funny how books can become so intertwined with vacation memories for us readers? I have a less pleasant memory of a vacation at a lovely inn in Sunapee, NH. It would have been around 1990 or so. I spent a lot of time reading on the big front porch looking out at a lovely field. The book was Borrowed Time: An Aids Memoir by Paul Monette. It was a good book but so incredibly sad. I had lost a few friends to the Aids plague, one of them a very, very close friend. My memories of this vacation are tinged with sadness from my reading material. I try to choose lighter, more upbeat reading material for vacations now.

[littlebittybobby]

okay---so I thought I'd continue this discussion because this weekend is the National Get Out There And DRIVE Holiday! Yup. millions and millions will be hitting the roads, just to get their miles in. I noticed that my good neighbors, the Carjocksons, appear to have left, prolly ta go ta Arkasssaw ta see the graaaaandkids! Well, that is good. I, will prolly take my tools and head on over the two miles ta the wreckin' yard. last time i was there, they had a nice front bumper & a winnsheeld for my van. But yeah---that's allla the driving, for mee. Thank mee.

[rosarugosa]

We've always avoided going away on holiday weekends, even when we were working. We also stay close to home Fourth of July week, when America Goes on Vacation (same for Thanksgiving week). We might do a fairly local daytrip on Tuesday, when everyone else goes back to work, and the weather is supposed to be nice for a change. It probably won't be to a wrecking yard though, I was thinking more of a park or a garden.