- Take to the highway ... again

Retrospective (5/2/2016)

I didn't say much about the 21C Museum Hotel in the original post (below), but we did very much enjoy our brief stay there. Having heard there was an award winning chef in the house, we made sure to get dinner reservations.

The food did not disappoint (except for the decaf coffee), but looking back several weeks later I'm hard pressed to recall what we ate. What I do remember (besides the disappointing decaf) was part of our conversation.

Toward the end of the meal Don asked me about the status of a project I envisioned during a stop in Waxahochie last year. The Dove's Nest where we ate had a kitschy "Things my mother said" sign, some of which hit home. 

"What if I made one with things I've said to the girls?" I wondered.  And thus began my list of "What I said."  Ever since then, when I heard something come out of my mouth for the umpteenth time, I'd add it to the list.

I must have said one of those things at dinner, because it prompted Don to ask, "What's on the list so far"?

"Could you repeat that?" I said. Because that was indeed the very first thing on the list, since hearing is not one of my strong points (for those of you new to the blog, I wear two hearing aids and am certifiably deaf without them). But it came out sounding much like a "Who's on first, What's on second" Abbott and Costello routine.

Don laughed so hard that I started to laugh, too. And if anyone in the classy 21C restaurant took it amiss, we couldn't have cared less. We just kept laughing.

Patch #107

Original Post

We usually travel the 750 miles from San Marcos to St Louis in two days so we can get to the grandkids as soon as possible. Heading home is not as highly motivating, so we've taken to spreading the trip over three days with stops along the way to entertain ourselves.

Having heard that the Crystal Bridges Museum http://crystalbridges.org/ and 21c Museum Hotel http://www.21cmuseumhotels.com/bentonville/ were worth visiting, we made Bentonville, Arkansas our first stop this time around.

As Navigator in Chief, I tried to get Google Map to route us into some scenic views of the Ozarks. Ha! Be careful what you wish for ... you might get it.  Here's the (very apt) description of Missouri Route 248 that we ended up on, courtesy of Wikipedia ...

As a result, I had my eyes pretty much glued to the road rather than the scenery, but Don tells me there were some pretty views as we wound our way down the road. Too bad there weren't any places to pull off to take pictures.

Crystal Bridges, on the other hand, offered lots of opportunities to enjoy the view. I've realized that I'm really more of a 20th-century art lover, preferring impressionistic to realistic depictions. So what follows are the pieces in the museum that caught my eye enough to get out my iPhone for a snap (with apologies for relative picture sizes as I'm composing by phone rather than laptop).

Thought of Grace and Marti when I saw this one ...

And of course, I always have Georgia on my mind ...

I also like seeing Arthur Dove pieces ...

When in Bentonville, it behooves one to seek out Thomas Hart Benton (whose ancestors were the source of the town's name, although THB was actually born down the road in Neosha) ...

Rothko was invoked in a recent conversation, so this study in orange was appreciated as a case in point (and as a potential patch) ...

Black birds for Mo ...

And lastly, one of the few textile pieces ...

brought back memories of hearing Maya Angelou read "On the Pulse of Morning" at Bill Clinton's 1992 inauguration ...

A potent force she was, from beginning ...

to end ...