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.