Bentonville: Out-of-this-World Wonderland in the Ozarks

Walmart Headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas

Bentonville, Arkansas is best known for headquarters of Walmart. The main building seems as bland in appearance as their retail stores. 

BUT THEN… there’s Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. This 120-acre park and stunning museum is the brain child of Alice Walton. 

Art Trail through Compton Gardens to Crystal Bridges

An active art collector of American Art, she lamented the fact that there were absolutely no art museums anywhere near Bentonville. The Walton family’s foundation backs it. Always free to enter; committed to education.

Talk about education! Although a group of high school students was being ushered through the gallery ahead of us, I had my own educational experience. A succinct explanation of the different styles of art in the collection is offered on a hallway wall. Artists in their Early American and Modern Art Galleries, it explained, responded to their everyday surroundings. Some painted regal portraits of men with powdered wigs. Others employed colorful, abstract shapes to show city life. Those depictions reveal the experiences of their own times. But Contemporary artists respond to major events, some finding inspiration in controversial issues in our daily lives. 

Lest the lines between the categories be too clear, the poster on the wall goes on, working in the contemporary moment doesn’t mean that artists don’t draw on the past. They do. They build on the work of their predecessors by borrowing and modifying established styles.

There are several deliciously apt examples. Here’s one: a portrait of dancer Martha Graham from a 1922 photo and then echoed in a 1977 sculpture.  

We spent three hours in the museum and grounds. I could have easily done more. It’s beautiful.

End of the Road Trip

 

Birmingham, Alabama

Last day of our road trip. One more state to go: Kentucky. Over the last ten days, my fabulous, good-sport husband has driven 2,500 miles so far. He’s behind the wheel and is my travel partner extraordinaire. He’s indulging me in striving toward my goal of seeing all 50 states in our country. 

Dickinson, North Dakota

From North Dakota down to Alabama and back up to Kentucky. Crazy? Nope. In this short time, we’ve experienced the rich variety of this wonderful nation. We’ve witnessed starkly different landscapes - from endless flat fields of Oklahoma and Kansas, to rock fjords of South Dakota’s Badlands, to forests of Alabama choked with falling-down shacks. We’ve driven through towns with block after block of shuttered businesses in Mississippi and Alabama but we were astonished by the picture-perfect charm of Bentonville, Arkansas. We’ve also delighted in discovering the differences of people across our land. You have to eat, right? We enjoyed seeking out local eateries and bars run by local entrepreneurs, to eat but meet and talk with locals. 

M’s Pub in Omaha, Nebraska

Parts of our country are so different, but parts of it are so much the same. I did a double-take at the sight of Arkansas’ state house in Little Rock. It looks eerily similar to Rhode Island’s state house that I see from my window in Providence. 

State House in Little Rock, Arkansas

It’s been a wonderful trip. And it will also be wonderful to return home to Little Rhody.

State House in Providence, Rhode Island

Lynchings and Honeysuckle

 

Martin Luther King said, “One day the South will recognize its real heroes.” Montgomery, Alabama just might be rising to the task. As loathsome as its history of racism is, the city now offers some outstanding museums and memorials to educate and reflect on racism and civil rights. 

Before I say anything about the wrenching experience of touring Montgomery’s museums and memorials, I have to note the honeysuckle. I have no idea if it’s intentional or not, but the intense sweet aroma of huge hedges of honeysuckle surrounds you when you exit both the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Civil Rights Memorial. Just when you think you are completely spent, the flowers’ perfume is a jolt of joy. 

The outstanding Legacy Museum focuses on lynching and racial segregation. Two hours in there flies by as the exhibits force you to confront hideous cruelty and its institutional protections. The walls are covered with powerful quotes, almost too many to absorb, and so many that they are impossible to remember. Photography is forbidden. I wanted to make mental notes of the particularly poignant ones but by the time I left the building, I could only retain one. It was about how the law doesn’t prosecute the white oppressors, it protects them. It was something like “They trade a white robe (i.e. the Ku Klux Klan) for a black robe (i.e. a judge).”  

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice is a sculpture garden of sorts. I entered what seemed like a graveyard of tall gravestones, except that they were affixed to the ceiling instead of being planted in the ground. I felt like I was walking in a forest of uniform brown slabs. Each slab is inscribed with the name of a county and its state, and the names and death dates of people who were lynched there. I searched for the names of counties in Virginia where my family is from. I craned my neck back to read the slabs as I passed by. But as I moved further in to the forest-like thicket, the floor gradually lowered and I had to tilt my head back further to be able to read the inscriptions. Eventually, the floor sloped so low and the tops of the slabs were so high, that the slabs hanging from the ceiling seemed like they were lynched bodies suspended from above. It was a sickening revelation. 

Top Things To Do in Omaha

 

One of the best things to do while visiting Nebraska is to leave it. Walk out and go to Iowa. 

The gorgeous Bob Kerry pedestrian bridge lures you up its stairs and around its curve. We encountered a young woman all decked out in graduation gear as she graduated from nursing school.

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Along the way, we saw a little message from “Bob the Bridge” who told us that what we did —standing in two states at once — is called Bobbing. Okay, Bob, whatever.

We visited the Durham Museum. It’s a museum of the history of Omaha and the region. But for me, the best part about it was that it’s housed in the former train station for the Union Pacific Railroad. The grand art deco structure is restored to its 1940s origin. My favorite part was the sculptures of soldiers and their gals positioned around the waiting room. It propelled me to WWII on the home front.

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I guess you could also say it propelled me from Omaha. But that’s not fair. Definitely worth it to visit Omaha. I’m glad I went. 

Kansas City Esthetic

I sought out the vibe in Kansas City, Kansas. The Kansas side, not the bigger, seemingly more upscale Missouri side. 

We ate lunch at Joe’s Kansas City, a barbecue joint that’s in the actual gas station it first started in. The original pulled pork is featured, but I chose from the Z-man sandwich series with smoked melted cheese and fried onion rings on top. Popularity has driven their success — with framed reviews from Forbes and the Wall Street Journal hanging next to the bathroom door. 

I loved the noisy bustling place. You wait in line to order and then grab a table. And then, the people watching begins. It’s almost as delicious as the food. 

In South Dakota, I fell in love with a State Park

 

We planned two days in the southwest corner of South Dakota. Major attractions are located there — Mount Rushmore National Memorial and the Badlands National Park for starters. It seemed logical to stay overnight in Custer State Park. The park contains a whopping 71,000 acres in the Black Hills region of South Dakota. 

With State Game Lodge as our base, we traversed the narrow rock passages on the Needles Highway. It’s a 14 mile wispy road through spiky granite formations and an evergreen forest. 

We also drove the 18 mile winding Iron Mountain Road between Custer State Park and Mount Rushmore. Two of the narrow stone tunnels provide keyhole vistas framing the four presidents’ faces on Mount Rushmore. 

We booked a room in the State Game Lodge. Not a gun-rack-toting type affair, it’s a stone and timber inn with an upscale dining room, complete with its own cocktail designer. There are eight guest rooms in the original lodge above the dining room. We declined the opportunity to sleep in the room Calvin Coolidge occupied when he came to inspect Mount Rushmore but extended his visit for the entire three month summer of 1927. 

Creative Cocktails

Bighorn Sheep Lolling About

Catching Air in South Dakota

Huh? Driving along Route 90 in South Dakota, the scenery is flat and monotonous. Until giant motorcycles pop up in the air. The whimsical metal motos are displayed in the parking lot of a joint named Full Throttle Saloon. 

It’s a public service.

Not sure whether the skid marks are supposed to look like part of the sculpture.

Chowing Down on Chislic

We kept seeing this thing called “Chislic” on menus in South Dakota. At lunch in Custer, I asked the waitress about it. “It’s an appetizer made of steak tips marinated in steak sauce. Ours is the best because we don’t deep fry it.”  Sounded good to me. The taste? As far as I could tell, it was steak cut into bite-size pieces, drowned in A-1 steak sauce.

You could wash it down with local “wine” Red Ass Rhubarb. No thanks.

As to COVID protocols, the sign on the wall says it all. “Unless you’re here to rob us, no masks required.”

Another beverage option is local “wine” Rosy Ass. No thank you for that either. 

 

Badlands are Good-Looking-Lands

 

Interstate highway 90 across South Dakota propelled us across softly rolling green hills as far as the eye can see. Signs along the way announce“Buffalo Gap National Grassland.”  

Deceptive lead-up

We turned into the Pinnacles entrance of the Badlands National Park road (love the Senior National Park Pass for free entry) and drove along the 25 mile road. Just as we were lulled into a feeling of “same old/same old,” we encountered a gash. It sliced open the earth, revealing a world of severe striated rock formations. It looked like the Grand Canyon. 

Photo taken on the Yellow Mounds Outlook 

Eye Candy for Photographers

On the road out of Badlands, we came upon this scene: an Amish-looking guy with a full-on beard is staring down a Bighorn Sheep. 

Stare-Down

Buffalo Safari

 

Most of the acreage in South Dakota’s Custer State Park is devoted to the bison that roam the wide-open plains. Fields roll in every direction as far as you can see. Bison graze or lay about in groups of fifty or so. 

Most include newly-born calves, often nursing or snoozing next to their mothers. 

Fun fact I needed to learn: the animal’s name is bison or buffalo, interchangeably. To learn about the bison and other wildlife, Larry and I rode the Buffalo Safari. Over the course of the two hour ride, we learned how the park partners with both academics and hunters to manage the bison population. For what it’s worth, it’s ranked in the top 5 best safaris in the United States by MSN.com.

Guide Allen, a retired cowman explained the park’s annual one-day Buffalo Roundup to sell animals to control herd size. This year, it will be September 30, 2022, open to the public to witness cowboys and cowgirls on horseback, driving the buffalo across the plains and into the corrals where they are tested by veterinarians, branded and sorted. 

Branding Iron Numbers most discernible from bottom of photo to top of photo: 8, 3, 9 

The safari ride along the Wildlife Loop Road and some off-road detours in the open jeep was FREEZING! Even though it took a few hours for the feeling to return my fingers and toes, I still would say “yes” if asked whether I would do it again.