So far I’ve told you about  Little Rock, Hot Springs, our wonderful cabin in the Ozarks near the town of Pettigrew, and our short trip to Fort Smith.

That leaves our last two nights on the Arkansas journey, two nights south of Fayetteville at a lovely airbnb in a bit of a rural area, but not as rural as in the Ozarks, since it was about 15 minutes drive to Fayetteville.

I had forgotten until we were getting close that our last airbnb had not only a hottub, but a pool as well. It was a hot day, so we thought we’d check in, get unpacked, and go for a swim before dinner.

The cottage was designed by a couple who were an architect and landscape designers teaching at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, so it was gorgeous and well designed.

We had a nice swim and enjoyed just relaxing in the pool. We learned that Louie can’t float on his back–I tried to teach him, but while I can float on my back, I cannot teach somebody else to do so.

We had a dinner reservation at Vetro 1925 in Fayetteville, so we got cleaned up and headed to Fayetteville a little early. I wanted to see the house where the Clintons lived while they were in Fayetteville–it was technically a museum but not open anymore, partly due to COVID, partly (it seemed) due to state budget cuts.

It looked like an easy walk there from where we parked near the restaurant, but it ended up being really hilly, up and down and up and down, sometimes very steep!

It is a pretty house though, and I’m sorry it wasn’t open as a museum.

Then we got to back to where the restaurant and car were, and got seated ahead of our reservation.

Wow! This meal did not disappoint. We split a bunch of things, which we like to do, and while I was marginally annoyed that they charged us for splitting, when we never actually asked to split and only said we would be sharing everything, I decided that was a small thing. (To be clear: we shared about 4 dishes, and said we were sharing, and they brought some of the dishes on two plates, which we did not ask for, and they did charge us extra for that.)

Not pictured, the salad course. Everything was tasty, though the tiramisu was a bit over the top and might have focused more on something other than chocolate syrup…

We went back to the cabin or whatever you want to call it after dinner and relaxed. I actually don’t recall if we got in the hottub or not, but I bet we did.

The next morning we were heading to Bentonville and the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art. We ate oatmeal in the kitchen, made coffee, and headed out.

This is where the day got very Walmart centered. Bentonville is where Walmart got started and it is a scene there. Mountain biking, tourism, and this gorgeous Museum. I have a lot of feelings about Walmart, few of them good, but we had heard that the Museum was excellent.

I wrote a long rant about Walmart and how they are responsible for so many issues in our country through years of political lobbying, low wages, etc, but I decided to just let it go…I’ll just sum it up to say that I was excited to see the museum because I love art, but I won’t wax poetic over the Waltons for spending a small amount of their fortune on a museum which only improves their social standing. They have a lot of money. I do things for free too and give many charitable donations and I don’t make signs all over my house bragging about it.

ANYWAY sorry about all my soapboxing! Back to the trip report 🙂

I have to say, the Crystal Bridges Museum is really lovely. It’s a little confusing at first, because there is a lot going on between indoor and outdoor paths, a bit of construction, COVID, and a sort of open area you enter without obvious maps or welcome area. But we found our way, first to the outside paths because we were afraid it would start raining soon…

And then we made it inside. The galleries were well laid out, kept things moving while being interesting and informative. We didn’t find the collection to be overwhelmingly large, which was nice. We walked around for a few hours and decided to take a break to have lunch at the cafe, which was very nice.

After lunch, we decided to leave, so we headed to downtown Bentonville to check it out. It was…lovely. Like a disneyland version of what small towns used to look like before Walmart decimated them! So glad they kept one! It was cute and shiny, and full of art and bicycles.

We didn’t get to see the Walmart Museum as I’d hoped, because COVID meant reservations and I hadn’t made one, because my priority had been the art museum–which had originally required reservations as well but then changed recently. We walked around, visited a bike shop, a coffee shop with the worst bathrooms we’d seen in such a nice area for awhile, a fancy Walmart grocery store, and some lovely paths through some Gardens.

We decided to eat an early dinner in Fayetteville, and went to Hugo’s, which was a long running favorite of locals Burger place. It was great! We had a bit of a wait even at 5 pm, but nothing bad at all and we enjoyed the ambience and the food. It felt a bit more “real” than Bentonville, and we appreciated that. I’m sure that Bentonville feel is right for many, just not me.

We enjoyed the hot tub and visited with our host’s horses after dinner, and then watched some tv while it rained a bit outside.

The next morning we headed towards Pea Ridge Military Park, which is an NPS site, so you know it’ll be well done. It was a gross rainy day, so we decided against any hiking, and just visited the Vistor’s Center and then did the loop road. We did pop out at every stop and took short walks as they were there (it wasn’t raining too hard, but it was soggy and buggy for sure). It gets tempting sometimes, to just stay in the car, but we decided since we were there we were going to pop out at every stop. There weren’t any we regretted.

It was interesting to learn about a Civil War Battle and really made me think about how awful War is and how there are many people who glorify violence, when it isn’t that at all. So many soldiers (and civilians) died and were wounded, and for what? Surely there are better ways. There are so many wars going on, right now…it just makes you really think about life, and how so much of what we have in our lives we take for granted and it could all be taken away in an instance.

In any case, we learned quite a bit. The museum in the Visitor’s Center was a nice start, and then the signs and brochure are helpful along the way. We had visited somewhat nearby Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield in a previous year, and this was a later battle. If I’m remembering correctly!

They had all the cannons lined up where they would have been.

There was some nice scenery as well!

The Elkhorn Tavern, which I think was rebuilt for this, but I’m not sure. Sometimes the NPS is sneaky like that, you think something was still there and it is actually a reconstruction, so I don’t know. I could probably research it, but where’s the fun?

Anyway, after visiting Pea Ridge, we hit the road for home. It was about a 4 hour drive home, and we made it by dinner time.

Arkansas was a lovely time. We especially enjoyed our last two airbnb’s, the Buckstaff Bathhouse, Pinnacle Mountain State Park, Little Rock Central NHS, the grounds of the Clinton Library in Little Rock, eating at Brave New Restaurant, visiting Crystal Bridges, eating at Vetro 1925 and Hugo’s, and just generally being away from St Louis! We are sorry that the Bill Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock was closed due to COVID, and that the visitor’s center and museum in Ft. Smith were closed for the same reason as those would have been great to see.

As more time now has passed, I will still say we enjoyed the trip, though we are sad we didn’t get to do a bit camping/out west trip this summer. Arkansas was nice, relaxing, and a lovely place to spend a week. If you are a Missourian especially, I recommend visiting sometime! We have also visited Eureka Springs in the past and it was great.