States of never mind

One of my sisters once told me, that on her deathbed, our grandmother told her one of the things she wished she had done in life was “go camping. It sounded like it would be so much fun.” Well Grandma Essie, it could be, but there is a lot of forced inconvenience which we have voluntarily welcomed (well, maybe not Patricia).  And, as a woman who owned furs, lived in a thoughtfully decorated San Francisco apartment and had a pet monkey, it may not be for everyone. But even as the weather has been turning colder, a lot of people are out camping, campground reservations are often hard to get and we are not alone at the Walmart parking lots.

We left Cline’s Corner truck stop in NM, traversing the very foggy edge of eastern NM. We would have been happy to bypass Texas but that is just not geographically possible. Santiago has a huge tank and for his size gets fairly decent mileage (23-27 mpg) so we figured we could get through without stopping. So we held our breath, and entered the state. We were so intent on getting through Texas, we didn’t bother to stop when we realized we were passing the Cadillac Ranch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Ranch.  It is easily visible from highway 40 (encompasses old Route 66 through Amarillo). Cadillac Ranch looked kind of run down and trashed, analogous to the patron of the project who later was identified as being pretty trashy so that eased the guilt of the viewing at 75 mph. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Marsh_3

We made it through the Texas Panhandle only stopping once to use the bathroom which perhaps was an appropriate stop in Texas. We had planned to blast through Oklahoma as well, but we had to sleep.  A  highly recommended camp site was in a park run by the city of Sayre, OK. And it was OK. Clean bathroom, clean showers, water, electric hook up and even Bob’s Big Boy (welcome home!).

  

We laughed at campsites reviews about the “goatherds” like who would complain about goats, until we realized that goatherds are thorny seeds that stick to everything and really hurt. Yep, still rookies. It was so cold and rainy, Nick had to climb up to the “attic” to get the winter clothes, no furs. It was a shame about the weather as the park looked fun with a swimming pool and mini golf. But we left no more footprints in OK and made it to Arkansas the next afternoon. Our only planned stop in AR had been the Hot Springs National Forest, but after a tip from our daughter Simona, we diverted to Northwest AR for the Crystal Bridges Museum.  It opened just 10 years ago, and is now considered one of the best American museums.  It was started by a Walmart heir Alice Walton.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t spend the night in the parking lot, so we opted by a nearby state forest campground but since Winter is Coming, bathrooms and showers had been shut down for the season, but the very helpful park ranger said he had opened the ones at the neighboring campground. After Nick went, Patricia refused.

Crystal Bridges lived up to Simona’s hype, which was even better since this was the first museum we have gone to in two years and was another “how did we not know this existed” moments. Noteworthy was the bucolic sculpture garden with a Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian house and a James Turrell Installation made even better because it had heated concrete benches complete with a (embarrassed) sleeping security guard. We could put a bunch of pictures in but we have very little image space on this free platform, so best to just go toe website https://crystalbridges.org

But the big ticket item was this

This seemed to have been inspired by Nick’s installation “Reverse Ice Cubes” in Tarzana circa 2008ish

and the follow up, “Reverse Ice Cubes with Swimming Dog”

But, back to Bentonville, AR. We actually spent so much time in the area, that we opted for another close by campground in Beaver Dam in Eureka Springs, unfortunately also closed bathroom and shower but the neighboring campground’s was open!

From day one of our trip planning, our goal was to spend several days visiting Hot Springs National Park https://www.nps.gov/hosp/index.htm.  We like to get ourselves in hot water.  Per the park ranger recommendation we took the very scenic Pig Trail drive to Hot Springs.

But, of course, as per our uncertainty principle practices, we pulled into town, parked and walked around, and that was enough for us. We had not known that now the hot springs only flow indoors and based on the number of unmasked people + the low vaccination rates, we were not going indoors.

Our inability to get in hot water and the plethora of Trump signs, Confederate flags and “Let’ Go Brandon” signs compressed our plan of a couple of days into one hour. Our AR stay concluded at the Cloud 9 RV park which was definitely more of a 5 or 6.

Thankfully, we were directed to camp on the edge of the park because the park was packed with people planted there long enough that they were getting their UPS and Amazon deliveries there (one woman excitedly picked up her Amazon package at the office as we checked in, saying it was her order of toilet paper). Voluntarily or involuntarily, there were a lot of people making Cloud 9 their home and a lot of people on wheels. Adults with walkers or scooters and kids on bikes. Riding bikes seems to be the main pastime of the (lots of!) kids we have seen at campgrounds, even midweek, school?

The polarization of the US was so apparent as we moved south. Our appreciation of the vitality, the beauty, the distinctness of region, often got knocked out by political signs (frequently vulgar and crass) and the gradual reduction of mask wearing as we moved East from Los Angeles.