May 12, 2021 Neighbors Mill Bakery and Cafe in Springfield, MO. Dinner - BBQ at Meramec State Park at 7:15 trying to get to Bentonville, Arkansas by 3:30 to visit the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

May 12, 2021 Neighbors Mill Bakery and Cafe in Springfield, MO.  Dinner - BBQ at Beaver State Park 

We left Meramec State Park at 7:15 trying to get to Bentonville, Arkansas by 3:30 to visit the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

We stopped in Springfield at 11:00 at an interesting bakery and cafe, named Neighbors Mill Bakery and Cafe.  The baked goods were beautiful and the bakery ground its own wheat into flour.  Suzette ordered an egg sandwich with Turkey and avocado.  The egg was an omelet folded between two large pieces of the bakery’s nine grain bread.

       Suzette’s Egg, avocado, and Turkey sandwich

I selected a large bran muffin that was one of the best I have ever eaten.  It contained pieces of diced apple with a cup of Earl Grey tea with milk and sugar.

We talked to Freddy, Victoria at the City, and Brian and hopefully resolved the permitting issue with the candy store while we ate our brunch.

We then continued on what was once Route 66 and now is I-44 toward Joplin but pulled over when the steering became unresponsive and limped into Neosho, MO. by back roads.  We drove to the local Auto Zone.  When the person checked under the hood he immediately saw Tharp the van had thrown the belt that drives the power steering and directed us down the street to the Master Service garage.  The man at the garage checked the belts and replaced three of them so they would all be the correct length and width in 1 1/2 hours, while Suzette worked and I dozed.

We made it to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art by 4:15 about one hour after our original 3:15 reservation.  

Suzette wanted to shift gears and drink a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and she made me eat a chicken salad sandwich with some corn chips with a glass of wine also.

We sat in the lovely restaurant built above the small lagoon set in the middle of the museum.  The museum is a work of art by Moshe Safire.

Here is a picture taken from the restaurant.

After our rest stop at around 5:00 we toured a Craft exhibit organized by Crystal Bridges and then the permanent collection. There were many good paintings in the collection. We were thrilled to see so many paintings by artists whose works we have in our collection, including Agnes Martin, Harry Fonseca, and Harrison Begay.

               A James Audubon painting of a Turkey

                                           Portrait of Alexander Hamilton

A gorgeous Agnes Pelton transcendental painting.

We sat in front of the Mark Rothko and I did my deeds for the day.

Here is a painting I liked that I had not seen before.

  Our van was parked by a lovely dogwood tree.

After a quick walk through contemporary masterworks we left the museum at about 7:15 and drove to our campsite for the night at Hickory Creek Park on Beaver Lake, Arkansas.

We had a pad right beside the lake.

As it darkened around 8:30 Suzette heated the leftover artichoke hearts, beans, and six pork ribs for dinner and I added some Mayo to the cole slaw to make it creamier.  We drank beers with dinner and enjoyed our BBQ for the second time.

We went to bed at 9:45 with the murmur of night trawling boats to rock us to sleep.

Bob Appetit