Tag Archives: Nature

My Corner of the World – Bentonville, Arkansas

Early in April, Heather and I ventured over to Bentonville, Arkansas for a little weekend getaway. Bentonville is of course the headquarters of Walmart. A gigantic company by anybody’s standard. It is also home to the amazing Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, founded by a Walmart heir. Bentonville is also in an area of incredible natural beauty, woods, hills, lakes, ravines, streams. It is gorgeous.

High rises are going up in once sleepy little Bentonville

You couple that with Walmart’s reported insistence that companies that do business with them have a local presence.

Hunger by Walter Ufer — A painting from the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa at Crystal Springs as the Gilcrease is being rebuilt.

So out of this mish mash stew, an amazing city has sprouted up. Great restaurants, coffee bars, brew pubs. As people all over the country have converged on the city and transformed it.

Johnny by Susie J. Lee — A high definition video of an oilfield worker, on display.

The art museum has ballooned all over town and is building an addition that will add 60% more space to the main museum.

Bachman Wilson House by Frank Lloyd Wright — A Frank Lloyd Wright designed house bought by the museum and reassembled on the museum grounds. – No interior photos allowed.

Talk about a fun place to visit. Just a couple hours from Tulsa.

Pecos Escarpment - by Walter Hogue — An oilfield paintingl

And the main part is all walkable. We rented a condo just a couple blocks off downtown. We were able to walk to the museum over some beautiful trails. We walked to restaurants, coffee places, and bars and went for long walks in the woods.

Talk about edgy, pink here there and everywhere.

We saw some incredible edgy art that I don’t quite understand. I think art should take you to your limits. That is where growth happens.

A night time installation of flowing letters that assemble into words and sentences.

The dividing line between art, museums, town, and nature are very blurred in Bentonville.

Seen on the trail from the town square to the museum

We had a great time. We celebrated my birthday. Another trip around the sun.

It is a rejuvenating place. It almost has a Santa Fe vibe about it.

We’ll be back.

Another nightime outdoor installation

I’m linking up with My Corner of the World.

In Search of the Rid(dle)diculous Geocache

I have been after a geocache named “That’s Just Rid(dle)iculous!!!” by a geocacher named M5. (Geocachers have names, I’m known as YogiABB.) Its puzzle cache which means one has to solve a puzzle to find the cache.

This puzzle involves arithmetic and some baffling wordage about the three kids and the sum of their ages, and the product of the their ages, and one’s a muggle and oh my. I don’t know what is going on.

Ithought I had it so I went out the area and bushwhacked to what i thought was ground zero and looked here and there and up there and down here and around and around. so I didn’t find it.

I didn’t find the cache but I had a pleasant hour in the woods, Plus One for ME! And found a new secret trail!! Score One More for Me.!! It is not very long but it is sweet.

So I’ll take that.

Leaves of Three – Let it Be

I found a patch of poison ivy on one of my recent walks in the woods. It sure is pretty when it changes color. Don’t touch though. I’m not sensitive to it, but I don’t tempt fate either. I used a new Topaz Labs product “Texture Effects” on this. It popped the colors out a little bit and somehow gave the image a somewhat 3D effect. I love messing with photos.

I am linking with Digital Art Meme

Geocaching on a Sunday Afternoon

The weather was warm and sunny on Sunday, the Dallas Cowboys are not playing until Monday night, Logan had a friend over, the lawn didn’t need mowing so I loaded up and ventured to Tulsa’s Oxley Nature Center to hike their North Loop trail and see if I could find a geocache or two.

I’ve hiked the trail several times over the years. I have never ever met anybody else. So I guess that it makes it my trail. Sunday was perfect, if a bit warm. What I loved was the that the wind was blowing quite hard but in the woods, on the ground, noting was stirring but the you could see and hear the tree tops going back and forth. I don’t know about you but that is about the sweetest music I could ever hear.

I was in heaven out in the woods. It is how I recharge my batteries.

The October light was awesome. The trees haven’t changed color but they are thinking about it. Everything is getting a little more pale.

I found only one cache but you know, looking for caches is all the fun. I love geocachers, “OkieBeans”, “Barrel O’Monkeys” only bloggers get more creative with their handles. I looked for three caches. I found two actually but could only log one. The other one I could see it but I certainly wasn’t going to try and get it when I’m out their by myself.

I rested a little bit, wondering why I didn’t bring any water on such a hot day. I didn’t figure that out but I did enjoy sitting on my personal bench on my personal trail. Oh, by the way, feel free to come out and hike my trails, nobody else seems to be.

You can see my various wanderings on my hike above. I parked my car and gathered up my stuff and headed down the trail and then realized that I didn’t spray myself with DEET. I thought all heck with it and then I remembered how miserable I am both with the chiggers and other creepy crawlers so then I went back. You can also see where I stop and try and find the geocaches and other times when I lose the trail and have to go figure out which way to go. Plus I stop for photography breaks and have been known just to stop and look around at what is going on around me.

Anyway, a great Sunday afternoon that the Cowboys didn’t get a chance to ruin.

Linking with Our World Tuesday

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