Painting and Camping, a Perfect Road trip!

I'm just back from a month long road trip through 5 State parks in Arkansas and Texas. I faithfully wrote my blog posts along the way only to discover that most parks have no internet service and sometimes no phone service. Internet service was occasionally and  sporadically available from some location away from the campsites, but frankly, I found it refreshing to"un-plug".

On one of the many hiking trails in the Ozarks

 My days were filled late into evening with hiking, sight-seeing and painting. There was barely time each evening to cook a meal in the comfort of my travel trailer before falling into bed exhausted but happy. I even got used to the almost daily rain until a severe storm knocked a lot of  trees down. That was a bit scary and with no end in sight, I high-tailed it off that mountain top.

Now that I'm back in Florida, I'll share in my next few posts some of the highlights of my trip.

For about 10 days, I camped with my husband along War Eagle Creek in the Ozarks. This was base camp for some of the best hiking and painting on the trip. Initially I was very unprepared for the heavy rain, but as the locals told me, be thankful for the rainy season because when it ends, it becomes blistering hot! I can believe it. Despite being in the mountains, it was as hot as my Pensacola home.

Dang! Rained out halfway through!

On one of these rainy days, we drove out of the weather to Bentonville to see the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art. What a little gem of a museum! Their collection of American Art is impressive. The realist 19th century landscape painters of the Hudson River School and Luminist type styles, are especially well represented. They also had an exhibit going on called A Taste For Modernism of pieces from the William S. Paley collection usually housed at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

 I wondered why it was called crystal bridges until I saw the amazing architecture. The museum is made up of galleries ,"bridges", spanning a large pond fed by a natural spring on the grounds. The grounds themselves are a work of art with miles of manicured hiking trails over waterways and through dogwoods. Small pavilions echo the architecture. A Frank Lloyd Wright house is in the process of being moved to the grounds. There wasn't enough time to fully explore the grounds as well as the museum. Allow lots of time if you go. Here are a few pieces from the many I enjoyed.

This painting of the artist's studio caught my eye. It reminded me of my first NYC apartment in the West Village.

How's this for believable water and luminous light!

This one was a surprise! It's an art school assignment of Andy Warhol's. The assignment was to draw heads and hands.