Wes and Erica's vacation photo album // Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art // September 2023

I saw online that there is a Kusama exhibit on display and knew I needed to go!

We drove to St. Louis, MO via Bentonville, AR because Andrea suggested that we visit the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. While not the biggest fan of American or contemporary art, I decided to go because 1. it has free admission, 2. I've never visited Bentonville, and 3. it was a good half-way point on our drive. 

The Lantern Bearers, largest picture in the top center, was my favorite painting in the museum.

We stopped in the Barnes & Noble in Rogers, AR (there aren't any in Bentonville) so I could get my customary tokidoki Unicorno figurine for the trip. They claimed to have a wide selection online but there was only one lone figurine in the store and it was of a zodiac sign that didn't belong to me, Wes or the dogs, so I didn't buy it. I fully understand that superstitions aren't really true but I ALWAYS get a Unicorno at the first stop on our road trip and place it on my dash so it can "lead" us and bring us luck on the remainder of the journey.  I didn't get one in Arkansas, and when I Googled the first Wal-Mart store & museum (the other thing besides the art museum we wanted to do while we were in town) to confirm its operating hours, I found out it was closed for renovations until Spring 2024. The first sign of bad luck so I was determined to find a figurine asap. 😱

Anyway, our trip to the museum!! 🎨 - The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is pretty neat. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. 😀 I really enjoyed all the large installation pieces. (Installation art is the only form of contemporary/modern art that I really get in to.) Wes & I watched a documentary about artist, Yayoi Kusama, a few years ago that we both really enjoyed. I was SO excited when I saw on the museum's website that they have their very own Kusama installation!! It's a tiny room that is filled with bright color-changing lanterns. The walls & the floor are mirrors so it looks like you're surrounded by a zillion of them. You can go in alone or with your group, but it's really intimate so you don't go in with strangers. You get a minute to stand in there and be in awe. We went through it once together; I loved it so much that I stood in line to go in again by myself when Wes went off for a bathroom break. 

Is this not the coolest thing you've ever seen??!?!😮

Another art I wanted to experience was "the gift of song," a performance piece. There are singers dressed in plain clothes in the lobby who will come up to you and ask if you'd like a gift. If you accept, they'll sing to you. 🎶 Wes didn't want to be sung to so I went out on my own while he stayed at our table to wait on our lunch to arrive. I met the best museum volunteer ever -- an elderly gentleman who knew EVERYTHING about the museum! Firstly, he complimented me on my pants (which I made), then he offered me a Spanish map/guide (they were out of English language ones), and when I mentioned that I came for the Kusama installation, he pointed out a short cut on the map for me. We waited around for the singers to arrive but they didn't, and then the volunteer said he actually thinks he saw them walk away to go on break a little bit before I got there. I could have chatted to him forever about the museum and art trivia, but didn't want to keep Wes & our meal waiting any longer so thanked him and left.

The museum is a giant donut shape with a pond in the middle. I made a bee-line for the Kusama installation and then we walked around the rest of the museum. I stopped in the art studio, which was mostly for children but whatever, and made a "post card" for one of my pen pals. I took pictures of all the art that featured dogs 🐕 and sent a picture of the Italian greyhound sculpture to Lacey (they look exactly like her Prescilla & Wrecker! 😍) One of my favorite pieces was a series of hummingbirds. The artist camped out somewhere in Arkansas for ages studying them. Then they used all their knowledge to paint the most realistic hummingbirds ever. So beautiful!!

You must see these in person to see how detailed and amazing each painting is. This is just a sample; I think there were about 20 paintings total.

After seeing everything inside, we headed outdoors. The museum has several trails to hike and I wanted to take the Art Hike. It was less than a mile, but felt like much more because it was really warm that day (like +90℉ at the end of freakin' September😡). After we finished our hike, I noticed on the map that we missed one of the sculptures that I wanted to see but it was way too hot to go back again to find it.

There is also a Frank Lloyd Wright house on the trails. 🏡 I reserved us tickets for 4:30pm, but we got there earlier and the security guard let us in. We were the only ones in the house! The house was originally built elsewhere but the museum bought it and moved it piece by piece onto the premises. Then reassembled it all. We got little mp3 players with an audio tour of the house. The tour spoke a lot about natural light and the placement of windows, but the house was currently being renovated and their windows were covered in protective paper. 😒 So much for experiencing the wonders of natural light. LOL The house was really neat and I liked how the audio tour took us through each room. I especially liked the ultra modern functionally designed chairs. 

The house doesn't look like much from the outside but it was pretty cool inside. No photography is allowed inside, sadly.

We met Hamish, the museum cat outside of the house. The security guard told us that he lives in the neighborhood and likes to visit the house to sunbathe in the driveway and stalk squirrels in the yard. We were at the museum practically all day. We got in around lunchtime and walked out to the parking lot just as they were announcing their closing over the intercom. Reviews online state you only need 2-3 hours but I would plan for much more time. And thus concludes our visit to the art museum.

The next morning, the hotel clerk noticed Wes's Saxon shirt when we checked out. He told us he loves that band and is a huge heavy metalhead. I told him we were on our way to St. Louis to see Babymetal and he told us about every concert he's attended. He was a very nice man, talkative and friendly, but maybe too much so 😐 At one point the phone rang and he just ignored it to keep talking to us. We weren't on an extremely tight schedule but we did have to get on the road. We chatted for a bit longer and I had to end the conversation because he didn't know how to and Wes is too polite. Then we headed out... Missouri bound!! 🚗

My collection of all the artworks with dogs. 💗

Wes and Erica's vacation photo album // St. Louis, MO (food) // September 2023

 

Proof that we did more than just eat on this trip. LOL

Its been a good long while since we took a vacation. We drove to St. Louis, MO (with stops in Bentonville, Springfield, and Tulsa) for a concert in late September. 🚗We did plenty of fun sightseeing, but first ... food. 😋 Sadly, we didn't get to eat at as many restaurants as I had originally planned. I didn't do proper Google research; one of the restaurants I wanted to try closed early (Nathaniel Reid Bakery) and another one was closed the day we were in town (Basil India). Despite that, we still got to try lots of new delicious foods.

Andrea told me about the Crystal Bridges Art Museum in Bentonville, AR and when I mapped it, it ended up being a really good half-way point. We stopped in on our first day and had lunch at the museum's restaurant, Eleven. The fries were soooo salty but in a good way (Wes said they were too salty but I thought they were perfect!) 🍟He got a smash burger and I got the "Bentonville" hot chicken sandwich, their take on Nashville hot chicken. It wasn't very spicy but still spicy. The two extremely nice & friendly employees behind the counter compared it to the spiciness level of Taco Bell's hot sauce. I tried a trendy new shrub soda, and it was not for me -- too earthy/healthy tasting. I got the pineapple shrub and it tasted mostly of shrub (vinegar & ginger) and barely of pineapple. 

We went to Tavola Trottoria for dinner. It was one of the highest ranked restaurants in town but I think their 4.8 stars were for atmosphere and decor rather than the food. The food wasn't bad but I don't think I would go again. I got the eggplant & goat cheese lasagna and Wes got a chicken dish -- don't remember what exactly. The best thing we got was our appetizer. We got bruschetta layered with brie and a pesto fig compote spread. Our waiter was super nice & attentive, and the restaurant was very fancy so I guess it was worth the trip.

The next morning, we went to Crepes Paulette for breakfast. There was construction on the surrounding streets so we parked somewhat close and walked. I thought it would be okay to walk a few blocks on a September morning... nope. It was almost 90℉ by 11am. 😫 The restaurant was right next to a coffee place so I politely asked the owner if we could get coffee from next door and bring it in to have with our breakfast. (Wes gets so embarrassed when I ask questions but the owner, Paulette I'm guessing, was super chill about it.) My crepes are ranked a close second for best meal I had on this trip. I got a pumpkin pie crepe, which was good, but my second crepe was AMAZING. It was their Elvis crepe, which had bacon & bananas, slathered with peanut butter and covered in maple syrup. 😋 Wes got a strawberries & crème fresh one.

I wanted a Lumberjack latte (white chocolate and maple spice) but they were out of one of the syrups - I can't remember which one, so I told the barista to just sub it with whatever she thought would taste most comparable. She did a good job but I don't think I liked it as much as I would have liked it with what it was supposed to be made with. Wes got his usual cold brew with oat milk.

We had lunch on the road (I had a bag of taco pizza flavored chips from Casey's gas station) and made it to St. Louis for dinner. We went to The Vine Café. My dinner was my favorite meal of the entire trip. This was the first time I ever tried Lebanese food. And now I want to eat it a million times more! LOL I wanted the cilantro chicken but they were out (we got there around 8pm so it wasn't too late but a lot of places close early in St. Louis), so I got a Mediterranean kafta instead. It was like a mix of Indian and Mediterranean food, not spicy like Indian but a similar blend of spices. Wes got the lamb kebob. Our dinners came with soup and the soup of the day was lentil curry. It was the best lentil soup ever! The portions were gigantic; we had enough for dinner the next night. 

We went to MoKaBe's Coffee House for breakfast the next morning. Another place with cute vibes but not so great food. 😕 (and also less cute than Tavola)  I thought we were both ready to order so I went up to the counter, turns out Wes hadn't fully looked at the menu and had no idea what he wanted. He hastily ordered a breakfast burrito and said it was bad. His chief complaint being that the salsa and guacamole in the burrito tasted store-bought. I got a ham breakfast sandwich on an everything bagel. It was okay but my bagel was not "everything." It probably had a light sprinkle of seasoning at best, more like an itty bitty dash of it. I must have been underwhelmed with my coffee because I'm looking over pictures and I cannot even remember what I had.

We walked around the Central West End district all day and I stopped in Clementine's Naughty or Nice ice cream parlor for a snack (Wes got a cold brew from Starbucks instead). 🍦I should have taken more pictures because this was the most adorable little place. I wanted a sticker but they only had iron-on patches of the design I liked. There was lots of other merch, too, but I didn't get any. They had "naughty" booze infused flavors and "nice" vegan choices. I stuck with regular ol' non-alcoholic dairy ice cream. There were TONS flavors I would have liked to try, and I'm sure they offer samples, but the girl behind the counter seemed very unhappy to be at work and I didn't want to further ruin her day by asking her to actually do her job. So I just ordered a flavor I knew I would like. I got the "Blue moon", which was a blue raspberry lemonade ice cream in a lavender cone. It was very very good.  

The next morning we had our last meal in St. Louis at the Courtesy Diner. If you imagine an old timey 24-hour diner from any movie or pop culture reference, this place resembles it to a tee. I got the "hangover" and Wes got the standard 2 eggs with choice of meat breakfast meal. I never thought to put sausage gravy over a chicken fried steak but it works! Both of our meals were delicious. And very filling, which was perfect because we didn't stop for lunch on the drive to Tulsa.

We had dinner at Kirin in Tulsa. We were dressed in very casual "I'm going to sit in a car all day wearing this comfy outfit" clothes and this place is meant for patrons who dressed a bit nicer. 😬 Nevertheless, we were seated and our waitress didn't mind. Wes got Singapore noodles and I got sushi. 🍣 This was the first time I've seen colorful roe. I'm sure each color tasted different but I was mostly impressed by how pretty it was. 😅 I don't remember what was in my colorful sushi, but the other roll I ordered was the classic spicy tuna. I liked both my rolls and enjoyed how much pickled ginger came on my plate. 

Wes likes stopping for coffee on road trips and I like stopping at boba cafés. I knew we'd be driving through Tulsa so I looked up boba places and found Bo's Boba. It doesn't sound as funny now as I type it but I had a whale of a laugh when I said it out loud for the first time. Oh, the hilarious alliteration!! 😂 Wes got a fruit tea and I got a raspberry milk tea with crystal boba. The milk tea was genuinely very good, but raspberry was not the correct flavor to add into it. I thought it would taste like strawberry milk... instead it tasted weird and tart. 

And thus concludes another foodie adventure. Next up is pictures from all the touristy sightseeing we did!