Route 66 Road Trip Day Six: The Amazing Crystal Bridges Museum In Bentonville, Arkansas

The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is an American treasure and made is fall in love with Bentonville, Arkansas.

Route 66 Road Trip Day Six: An Afternoon Of Indoor And Outdoor Art

As had become routine, we spent the morning working, which turned out to be a mistake on this day. The Hyatt House was nothing special, but did the job and it was nice to be able to work in the living room while the kids slept in.

Breakfast only went until 9:30 am and I was going to skip it altogether, but this was one of the Hyatt Houses that has not ditched the omelet bar, and I very much appreciated that.

The pool here had greenish water…yuck. Augustine begged and begged to go in anyway and finally I relented, but he took one whiff of the water and said, “On second thought…”

The coffee at the hotel was not drinkable, but I found a wonderful place nearby called Calmo Coffee, which was wonderful.

As I said, I wish we had started earlier and I had no idea what to expect, but we pulled up to the Crystal Bridges Museum at 3:30 pm, which houses artwork from Norman Rockwell to Andy Warhol and includes a 120-acre campus with hiking and, as we would find, outdoor art exhibitions as well.

The museum was founded by Alice Walton, daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton, opened in 2011, and offers free parking and admission. It’s essentially a philanthropic offering of Walmart and truly a national treasure.

The collection is vast and we enjoyed walking through it (and sadly, did not get through the entire museum, meaning we hope to return).

One reason we did not finish was because there was a hands-on area intended for children where you could draw…what a lovely offering that the kids enjoyed so much.

While the kids doodled, I got coffee for Heidi and me…not as good as Calmo, but still quite respectable.

I also took a stab at drawing for a special Advent wall with candles…I’ll stick to my day job.

We walked outside for a walk before it got dark: the air was crisp, but we enjoyed walking through the woods and saw what appeared to be great expansion plans underway for the museum.

Presently, we came to an outdoor exhibit called Time Loop.

Supplemental tickets were required ($25 each for adults, but kids were free).

We began with hot chocolate for Claire Marie…she was cold after refusing to wear long pants earlier…

We spent the next 90 minutes walking through the outdoor art exhibit…I’m not quite sure how to describe it (maybe avant-garde), but it was quite impressive and utilized sound as well to create several unique art stations.

More hot chocolate

It was now 7:30 pm and I wanted to go back to the museum to finish looking at the permanent exhibits (I never made it to the neon section), but Heidi and I decided it was getting late, the kids were hungry, and we had a five-hour drive to St. Louis ahead of us, so we just got back in the car.

We stopped at a very nice place called Casa Doner which had very fresh and delicious Middle Eastern food.

I concluded the meal with Arabic/Turkish coffee since I’d be driving and it was now after 8:00 pm.

The drive was somewhat of a blur, but we stopped in Joplin, Missouri to fill the car with gas and get Heidi some Starbucks so she could drive the final leg to St. Louis. I actually fell asleep and woke up as we were just a few miles from our Hyatt Regency Hotel in St. Louis.

1/2 the price of LA…

As drove through the streets of St. Louis at 2:00 am, we reflected on another great day. A long day, but a lovely one.

This trip report covers my road trip along the old Route 66 from Los Angeles to Chicago.