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The horses were chomping at their bits as we left Denver on our last leg home. Having taken this road many times, the RV could have steered itself along the familiar Interstate 80 from Cheyenne, WY to Sacramento. To break the tedium we stopped in balmy Salt Lake City, temperature in the low 70s in mid November. We have done volksmarches here before but enjoyed a new route up along Temple Square, past the state capitol and more buffalo grazing and down into the lovely Memory Grove Park.

That evening was a bit chilly when we rewarded ourselves with one of our favorite SLC treats, dinner at the Red Iguana. This has become a tradition for us. We order a big dinner and get to enjoy it as leftovers the next night in Winnemucca’s Walmart parking lot. As we mentioned before, the theme of this trip (beyond Bennett) was to view the fall colors. Well surprise to us, the trees lining the street to our home are still ablaze with wonderful color.

Maybe we didn’t need to leave home after all. Okay, yes we did. This fall we traveled 5307 miles through 17 states on our fourth cross-country trip and managed few repeat visits (except DC of course). This is a big, fascinating country and we are privileged to continue to find new and exciting places to visit. The bonus has been the friends and family who we have spent time with and who have enhanced our travel. We are home for a few months and hope you will rejoin us when we head out in 2014. Happy holidays to all and a healthy new year.

Denver

We have returned to Anna Lee’s home town to spend more family time with cousins Jo and Rich It seems in the decades since she left that it has grown into one continuous city from Colorado Springs in the south through Denver to Ft. Collins in the north. Rich commented that the Denver blog from a couple of years ago discussed the tremendous traffic of the city. Well, its only gotten worse as we found during our visit. But what is lovely is Cherry Creek State Park, another in-town park with full camping along a reservoir. We saw a large stag, a doe and a coyote, all near our camp site and really enjoyed seeing the Rockies and the Denver skyline across the lake.

Anna Lee recalls camping in the area as a Camp Fire Girl, long before it was developed. This will be our home base on future trips. We started our time together with cousins Jo and Rich by talking and talking over a Chinese dinner. We seemed to pair eating with talking during the whole visit. The next day, it was wonderful Jewish-style delicatessen at the New York Times Deli.

Then Jo and Rich took us to the Wings over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in an old hanger on the former Lowry AFB. After the introductory movie on the beauty of flying over the Rockies narrated by Harrison Ford, we studied the exhibit on astronauts with Colorado connections ranging from Scott Carpenter, a Coloradan, to some lesser knowns who spent a bit of time here. The hanger is filled with planes like this F86 Sabre Jet from the Korean war,

an X-wing fighter from StarWars,

a Phantom jet fighter,

Alan Shepard’s VW bug (an alternate to his ‘Vette),

and a B1 Bomber.

The large exploration area for children had this device simulating wheel travel on the moon or on other planets.

In side rooms were exhibits with tributes to President Eisenhower, artists who painted the nose of planes, clothing for severe climates, model airplanes and more.

Jo, Rich and Anna Lee pose under the tailgun of a B52 bomber.

The horrific traffic almost made us late for the Rocky Mountain Brassworks concert in Lakewood. The venue is small but lovely. The performance included the music we think a patriotic concert should present, music to make one proud and a bit emotional. They ended with the Armed Forces Salute and An American Trilogy. It was a good tribute for Veterans’ Day. Then we spent a day on a drive through the beautiful mountains on the way to Georgetown, an old mining town now tourist destination. At lunch we all shared bites of Jo’s cinnamon roll.

It was good to be back “home” even if the only thing recognizable is the family we had such fun with.

O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A

Okay, we’ll quit with musicals but not until we share this mural that was along our 10K volksmarch through various districts in the Oklahoma City.

This walk started in Automobile Alley where well-preserved mid-twentieth century auto dealership buildings have been transformed into shops, restaurants, architectural offices, etc.

Along the way we saw several buffalo.

We walked through Bricktown, another well-done redevelopment project.  The artificial canal is much like the San Antonio Riverwalk, lined with restaurants and bars, more fun at night than during the day, but a good place to walk or take a boat.

At the end of the canal is a larger-than-life bronze depiction of the Sooners, the madcap settlers who participated in the land rush of the Oklahoma territory.

Our walk ended in the Arts District.  Back in Auto Alley, we stopped to photograph this Chevy truck in an old dealership cum home decor shop. 

A lovely young women greeted us at the shop and recommended a lunch stop.  It was along our walk and we enjoyed one of the best lunches we have had (Anna Lee still extols the three-salad plate). 

Not wanting to waste a forkful of lunch, we were the last of the lunch crowd, for which we were rewarded.  The barista asked us if we liked coffee.  We said yes, and she GAVE each of us a cup of coffee that she was assessing.  Mmmm.

At the end of the walk we felt it was only polite to shop at the bakery where we had left the car.  We bought great bread and a fabulous brownie with cherries.

The next morning we went to the OKC National Memorial. 

 We had been to the memorial when we helped our son Jeff move back to NY.  At that time we visited the memorial at dusk as the lights under each of the chairs was lit.  The best word we know to describe this memorial is poignant. 

On this trip we went into the museum which starts with displays of minutes before the bombing and ends with the trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.  It is a difficult journey through the museum, especially the personal stories and the loss of small children, but the museum is well presented and intended to say never again and to show the reaction of the US to such a tragedy, a reaction we sadly have had to repeat.

After the sad history of the memorial, we went to another museum, the Oklahoma Museum of Art with its Dale Chihuly room.

We have found Chihuly’s glass sculptures all over the world and never cease to enjoy them.  This lovely museum, with a generous photo policy, has a large display, mainly because Mrs. Chihuly is from here. 

We also enjoyed the early American art, similar to that we just saw in Bentonville.  The more modern art was quite interesting.

The woman at the visitor’s center at the Oklahoma border the previous day had recommend Cattleman’s Steakhouse (not the chain) so we drove the deserted streets of OKC to the crowded restaurant where we did have an excellent dinner (quite a treat for the non-beef eating Anna Lee).

Bentonville Exceeds Expectations

Bentonville, AK, is the corporate headquarters for Walmart.  Well aware of the cons and pros of the company, we came for the highly touted Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

But we found beauty before we got to northwestern Arkansas.  This fall’s trip was dedicated to seeing beautiful foliage, which is why we went up to Vermont and traveled along the Appalachian  Mountains.  We have been successful as photographs have shown.  Once we got on Interstate 40 and crossed the Mississippi River our hopes for color diminished.  We had entered the plains expecting the end of trees.  We were wrong, there are still areas with trees bearing yellow, orange and red leaves.  Our real surprise was when we left Little Rock and headed north through the Ozarks and the Boston Mountains.  This area may have been the best color of the whole trip.  Anna Lee kept snapping pictures out the window as we drove along.

 That was the beginning of an almost perfect above-expectations experience.  Where the “almost perfect” applies was at the Walmart Visitor’s Center, our first stop in town. 

 This is where Sam opened his first five and dime.  No admission is charged for the museum and photos are allowed.  The static displays told about the wonderful world of Sam Walton and his values, including his devotion to his employees.

 His simple office and the pickup he drove are part of the display.   Now, he died in 1992, so he may not be responsible for what we hear about Walmart today, but the braggadocio was disturbing.  What did impress us was his business and economic savvy that built a global empire from one small store in 1950 in Bentonville, AK. 

An article in the February 11 The New Yorker discussed Brendan O’Connell, an artist captivated by the shelves of Walmart stores.  At first, he was tossed out of the stores.  Now he is painting regularly at Walmart including this, one of his first Walmart paintings.

Sam liked to talk about the spark of his employees and his company.  That spark symbol is now the company logo as shown during a toy fair outside the museum.

After the Walmart museum tour, we returned to our motorhome parked in an Elks Lodge parking lot.  We joined the Friday night dinner group and enjoyed a fried chicken dinner and good conversation. 

In the morning we went on one of our 10K volksmarches.  This one took us around town on an “exceeds expectation” walk along the wonderful trails that surround the Crystal Bridges Museum.  We again enjoyed some fall foliage.  The Art Trail sculpture garden has excellent pieces, many of them quite whimsical.  Each area we traversed was beautiful.

Our walk started and ended at the Bentonville Library.  They have a small café with tasty sandwiches at very low prices.  What really impressed us were the programs offered at the library and the large number of families using it on this Saturday morning before a major college football game.




As we walked past the road leading to the museum, we got our first taste of the art that was inside.  These hay figures have been installed for over ten years.  One can't help but wonder if one of them is a Walmart employee.

After our walk we returned to Crystal Bridges, the highlight of a great day. On 11/11/11,  Alice Walton, daughter of Sam, and, according to Bloomberg, the 14th richest person in the world,  opened Crystal Bridges with a collection currently worth $500 million and now one of the top American Art museums.  It was designed by Israeli/Canadian architect Moshe Safdie, who also designed Yad Vashem. 

We joined an orientation tour and again were fortunate to have an excellent docent.  We found the staff of the museum most friendly and helpful during our four-hour visit.  Another plus is that they welcome photography.

The architecture is wonderful with large rooms showcasing exhibits and sunny hallways with comfortable chairs and tables filled with art books and computers for visitors to use and views like this.

The collection goes back to the 1700s with a series of five portraits of the Frank family, one of the first Jewish families to settle in the New World.

 They were probably painted by a luminary, a traveling portraitist, who had canvasses readied with the painted bodies and merely added heads to the paintings.  These were part of a large collection of paintings from the colonial to early American periods.

This Gilbert Stuart painting was a gift to Alexander Hamilton for the signing of the Jay Treaty safeguarding US ships trading along North American borders.

We went through halls filled with Hudson River, impressionist, abstract, and contemporary art, each time having an art appreciation lesson.  It was also a chance to tie together art experiences we have had along this trip, particularly our third encounter with the Wyeths.

We were finally able to photograph a Wyeth, this one by Jamie.

This painting of Robert Lewis Stevenson (books illustrated by Wyeth, see earlier blog) and his wife is by John Singer Sargent.


Walking through a museum this large can be very tiring and this fellow just seems to have stopped for a rest.  Actually, we saw a work by the same artist in the Kohler museum (see earlier blog entry)

We have been to Norman Rockwell’s museum in MA (see blog entry from 2011) and saw an excellent traveling collection in Sacramento and now we have a photo of one of his most famous paintings, Rosie the Riveter. 

After the guided tour, we again went through the museum to spend time enjoying paintings we had missed. 

Talking into the horn on this one caused it to play Beethoven's music.  The work is entitled Beethoven's Ear.

There is no admission charge for the museum, parking and the audio tour.  A permanent endowment is provided for free admission and lunch for school groups.   Even the café and gift shop have reasonable prices.  Walton (not Walmart)  money is doing something very good in the arts for this small community and the surrounding area.  We were quite impressed.

Curiosity: 
Why doesn’t the Walmart in Bentonville  allow overnight parking (though we saw a small rig in the back of the lot)?