Day 16 – To Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri

This morning we grabbed coffee and wedges of quiche at Onyx Coffee Lab, a soaring, sunny space in the heart of Bentonville’s vibrant historic district. We ate at a café table under the covered sidewalk patio and took it all in: the yoga mamas grabbing their iced honey almondmilk flatwhites; the young professionals huddling over their laptops, the dog walkers looking like they just stepped out of a J.C. Penney catalog. It’s Main Street Disney dropped into the middle of northwest Arkansas. I read somewhere that someone described Bentonville as “very curated.” And yes, it is. It’s slick. But it’s also so, so seductive.  

 The art museum opens every day at 10 a.m. And since we were up and moving well before that, we had time to drive about 15 miles out to Pea Ridge National Military Park. BOOM!

Nobody outside of our immediate family understands the significance of Pea Ridge, but I know you do, Natalie, Charlie and Clare! For the uninitiated, Pea Ridge is one of the cards in National Park Matching Game. The person who draws that card always gets snickers because we are nothing if not kings of potty-humor innuendo (“Tee hee hee. You got Pee Ridge!”). Also valuable: Manassas (“Man’s Ass”), and the Vicksburg card – one of the most sought-after NPMG acquisitions of all – featuring a picture of a monument that looks like an enormous phallus.

 

Honestly, before this visit, whenever we played National Park Matching Game, I had only a dim idea that Pea Ridge is a Civil War site and just assumed that it’s somewhere in Georgia, Virginia or Mississippi. I never think of Arkansas as important or strategic in the Civil War. In my mind, Arkansas is way out there toward the left side of the U.S. map – like almost to Utah, but not quite – in kind of a no-man’s land. But then I look at a map and remember that I could float a raft from my hometown of St. Paul straight down the Mississippi River and land in Little Rock 1,500 miles later. I see that the state borders Louisiana, Alabama and Tennesee, but also that its northeastern corner is only about 80 miles from the southern tip of Illinois. Suddenly its role in the Civil War comes into focus. 

 

As Dad and I perused the exhibits at the Visitors Center, we learned that both Arkansas and Missouri were literal battleground states, and that the Battle of Pea Ridge (March 7-8, 1862) was the most crucial battle west of the Mississippi River. Although Arkansas initially voted to remain in the Union, it eventually turned Confederate and played a major role in controlling the Mississippi River. Missouri, though, was a hotly contested property, populated by both Unionists and Confederate sympathizers and supplying both sides of the war with armies and ammunition. In the days leading up to the battle, Union forces had been pushing south from Missouri. Despite being outnumbered by Confederate troops when they met at Pea Ridge, just about 15 miles south of the Missouri border, Union forces prevailed, and established Federal control of most of Missouri and northern Arkansas for the rest of the war. 

 

We took about 30 minutes to drive along the scenic loop that circles the 4,300-acre battlefield where 23,000 soldiers fought. In the 1860s, the area was a patchwork of woods and hollows, small farms and fruit orchards, stitched together by tiny crossroads communities between the Pea Ridge plateau and Little Sugar Creek. In fact, the battle is known locally as the Battle of Elkhorn Tavern, named for the trading post/house of worship/roadside inn that served as an army hospital and Confederate HQ during the conflict. The National Park Service preserves the landscape so that it looks much like it did in 1862. There’s even a recreation of the Elkhorn Tavern along the route.

 

Later in the morning, we visited Crystal Bridges Museum and spent a few hours with the extensive collection of American art – including Revolutionary-era portraits, early 20^th-century paintings and contemporary immersive installations. The museum building itself is a exquisite work of art. Set into a ravine and surrounded by woods and water, the building – made of glass, cedar and concrete, and crowned with copper – sprouts out of the landscape like a mushroom, or like a base on Planet Endor. Currently, the museum grounds are also a construction site, as crews are working on an expansion that will increase the size of the museum by 50 percent. And the cranes and scaffolding somehow enhance the space-age science-fiction feel.

I appreciated the juxtaposition of 250-year old paintings alongside much more contemporary works in the portrait gallery.

"Boy Eating Berries," "Boy Smoking" and "Boy at the Dentist," by Joseph Decker (1853-1924). The artist used painters palettes rather than canvas and transformed the thumbhole into the boy's mouth in each of the paintings. I thought this was very clever and, especially for an artist working around the turn of the 20th century, particularly cheeky.

Infinity Mirrored Room -- My Heart is Dancing into the Universe, by Yayoi Kusama, is a small mirrored room filled with dot-covered paper lanterns that change color. The dots appear to expand forever into the universe.

Chihuly glass chandelier

I was absolutely bewitched by Bentonville. I’d love to return to explore some more. But this afternoon, as we hitched up the Teardrop and prepared to hit the road, I was also happy to leave the performative polish – and the stifling traffic – behind in favor of something a little more down-to-earth.

We found it about 3.5 hours later, as we exited off of US Highway 54 in Osage Beach, Missouri. Along a one-mile strip of state highway, we passed a day care center, a middle school, a high school … and not one, but two strip clubs: Flirt and Porkeys. Osage Beach, Missouri, folks! Keeping it classy! 

 

We turned off the highway into the of state park, and then drove deeper and deeper into the woods to reach the campground. With each mile, Dad and I felt more and more uneasy as we imagined ourselves getting swallowed up by the swamp, or accidentally wandering into some kind of hillbilly haunt straight out of “Deliverance.”

 

When we finally turned into the campground, of course, we found it to be a cheerful place populated by regular folks – lots of kids and boats and trailers. Lake of the Ozarks is a place that I’ve heard about, but I never knew anything about it. I have since learned that it’s a reservoir that was created around 1930 with the construction of the Bagnell Dam on the Osage River. The lake has a surface area of 54,000 acres and more than 1,100 miles of shoreline – more than the California coast. On a map, you can see how the sprawling lake twists and coils, and with all of its little tendrils and tributaries, it looks like a whiskery dragon from a Chinese silk screen.

There are dozens of very tame deer roamingthe campground. Our campsite is right next to the lake, and one little friend has made herself comfortable, curled up and watching from a somewhat safe distance as we set up our campsite. 

It’s only about 82 degrees today, but it’s muggy in a way we have not yet experienced on this trip. And there’s no breeze, so for the first time Dad and I are actually uncomfortable with the heat. 

 

But we are glad we’re here. We’re not tired of camping, yet, but at the same time we are ready to be home. We’ll get there tomorrow. So, I’ll sign off here. But never fear: I’m already planning our next road trip. Stay tuned for Texas, New Mexico and Arizona … in March! ;-)