One of the nice things about road trips is the freedom to stop where you want. OK, we did have certain set spots where our arrival time was sacrosanct (e.g., our campsite in Yellowstone), but between here and there there was a bit of flexibility.
One of those unplanned adventures resulted from our last minute decision to visit the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art located in, of all places, Bentonville, Arkansas. Created by Alice Walton of Wal-Mart fame, it is the repository of an immense collection of American art of all genres and periods, and since there is free admission, it is an enormous gift to the public. One of her goals was to give access to art to those who had not had it before, and the visitors to the museum are a truly eclectic group.
Getting there entailed a trip through the mountain ranges bordering Hot Springs, the first being the Ouachita Mountains (and national forest). A sign aptly described the roads as “steep and crooked.” The mountains were heavily wooded, but occasionally opened up for vistas of multiple levels of ridges. Reminiscent of the Blue Ridge Mountains, except the color scheme was dark green textured against a blue sky. I don’t have any photos of the drive – I was too preoccupied with hanging on for dear life! The Ouachita were followed by another set of mountains – the Boston Mountains (who knows the reason for the name?) – which were still steep but with more gradual curves. The Boston Mountains took us into Bentonville, where we made a beeline for the museum.
Bentonville was surprisingly interesting. The museum area is a city unto itself, replete with apartment buildings, retail, sports fields, something called the Scott Family Museum (or Amazeum?), and, of course, the Wal-Mart Museum. But Crystal Bridges was our goal. It’s being doubled, if not more, in size, so there’s a lot of construction going on. The structure – low buildings bordered by lagoons and flowing water, blends into the landscape like a Frank Lloyd Wright building – sort of the opposite of the Guggenheim in Bilbao. The interior feels warm in tone and the art is thematically organized by great motifs in American art. There are also hiking trails and sculpture gardens, none of which we had time to sample – we had to reach Wichita!
If you wonder why the eagerness to reach Wichita, one of our non-negotiable times was to make it to Golden, Colorado for a party our friends D & D were hosting. And Wichita looked like the mid-point. Miles and miles of corn fields, peppered with occasional oil drills. I never thought of oil drilling as a family business before….but I guess that’s the whole Beverly Hillbillies idea . . . Blue sky backed the fields and prairies. It was an exciting moment when we encountered a curve in the road.
It turns out Kansas has great rest stops – probably because there are so few towns. My favorite was the one apparently erected in honor of the Benders, a 19th century family who lured unsuspecting travelers, and served them a meal in front of a curtain. In the meantime, one of the family would hide behind the curtain, cosh the unfortunate guests, and steal all their possessions. After the mysterious disappearance of a number of travelers the Benders went on the lam and no one knows what happened to them.
We stayed at a motel in Wichita just off the interstate. It was still too hot to pop up the rooftop tent and try our luck. We were so sick of driving by this point that we walked to the “Irish” pub next door. the only thing Irish was Guinness on tap. All the food was Mexican.
We got an early start the next day – there were still a lot of hours to go before Golden. More and more Kansas fields – we stopped in the charming town of Selina, which had some of the best Art Deco architecture I’ve seen anywhere. Lots of restaurants and a 1931 movie theater still operating as a theater. And we were able to purchase a “Tomahawk” steak as a house gift for D & D. Somehow that seemed an appropriate choice coming from Kansas.
Miles and miles more of driving, with little traffic until we hit Denver, where rain and a navigational error didn’t make it any easier.
But we made it to Golden just in time for the party which featured one of D & D’s friends, singer/songwriter Lynn Drury of New Orleans, who performed with the beautiful mountains in the background.
What better spot for a brief hiatus with friends before hitting the Wild West of Wyoming.