Tag Archives: Bars

Out of Town Hijinx

Recently we went on a little jaunt to Bentonville, Arkansas. Home of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and a very nice urban scene going on. Bentonville is also the headquarters of Walmart and the town is growing quickly. They have lots of restaurants and other places to entertain oneself.

Redbud Tree on the city’s trails

My partner in crime, Heather.

There are tons of walking paths all over town. We stayed close to the town center so we could just park our car and walk where we needed to go.

They not only have trails they have art integrated into nature with the trails.

Very nicely maintained and landscaped.

Lots of wildflowers.

We found a very nice Italian restaurant. Great food and wonderful service. The staff probably knew we were from Oklahoma when we pulled out phones to take photos of our deserts.

And here was mine. Two scoops of ice cream and one of raspberry sorbet. Wow, it was great.

And then we walked around for a bit looking for a place to have a drink. We found a place overlooking the square.

Another shot of Heather.

I had a gimlet, I think Heather had a glass of wine. It was wonderful to find a place for a drink and then walk to our airbnb a short distance away instead of parking.

The next day we got up, had breakfast and headed to the Crystal Bridges Museum. We viewed hundreds of works of art. All of them great. Here are a few that really caught my attention.

This work of art is Robe named “Eldest Daughter” by Addie Roanhorse. It was made in 2025 using traditional Osage Ribbon Cutting techniques.

The Good Shepherd

“The Good Shepherd” by Henry Ossawa Tanner in 1917. It caught my eye because we are close to Easter.

“Valley of the Catawissa in Autumn” by Thomas Moran, ca 1862. Talk about a great Skywatch Friday painting. I love Moran’s stuff.

The Song by William Merritt Chase

“The Song” by William Merritt Chase, in 1907. I’ve noticed this painting on several previous visit and it really struck me this time. I always thought it was a lady with a headache. But no, she’s listening to a piano played by another woman obscured by the column. Back then you didn’t have XM Radio or iTunes so if you wanted to listen to music, somebody had to play it for you. So the woman is listening hard to the music and is really into it.

So we had a good time. We got to spend a lot of time together and see some great art.

I don’t know when we are going home. Could be a while.

Linking with Skywatch Friday

Our World – Mystery House 2016

For good or bad I have over 75,000 images in my archives. Of these, maybe three or four are really good. But I’m keeping all of them. The thing about image archives is that if they are not tagged then they are not of any use. even though I can literally remember taking every single one of the photos. Every once in a while I run across one that I don’t remember like the following.

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When I am sitting down commenting on posts and such I also open up my untagged photo part of my archive. I have over 10,000 photos without tags. At least I have dates to kick start my my memory and I jump around the dates to keep things interesting. Doing that I came across the above photo. No tags but a date of April 17, 2016. Also, I can tell that I edited the photo and probably posted it on instagram. I started to remember being in New Orleans back then and taking a street car from downtown to Audubon Park and seeing this bar. And then I started looking at other photos I uploaded that day.

Update, Mystery Solved, In the great way that Al Gore’s Interwebs works, a facebook friend of mine, had a friend, a professional photographer who lives in New Orleans who knew immediately that this was the Circle Bar on St. Charles Avenue. I love serendipity.

French Quarter, April 2016

This bar with the beautiful doors (you can hire Low Rate Lockmsith in Rancho Cordova from here) and mysterious interior. New Orleans is a photographers paradise.

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These prehistoric looking birds at Audobon Park. Cormorants. Their feathers get wet so they hang them out there like that to dry them out. Good luck drying anything in New Orleans, the air is so thick and humid.

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And the big beautiful trees. The park itself is not that much. Hardpacked ground and kind of scruffy. That is just like most of the south though and that is its appeal.

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And the streetcars. It’s hard to take a bad photo of a New Orleans street car.

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K Paul’s restaurant in the French Quarter. A few years before my wife was with me and we had dinner there. We ate at one of the tables on the balcony. We spent hours and a had a great time. One of the most expensive dinners I ever had and worth every dime.

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Even the bicycles have style in New Orleans.

As you can tell I am a big fan of the city. I hope to be back soon. Meanwhile I am linking with Our World Tuesday