I had planned to have a bit of a slower time for my last full day in Arkansas, but ended up driving nearly 250 miles instead which was unexpected. But then lots of this trip has been quite unexpected!
My original plan was to get out of the City and check out the Ozark National Forest. You can see from that website that information on actual walks and trails is a bit sketchy so I decided to go to one of the Ranger Stations where I was promised maps and guides. Two hours later I rocked up at the designated place and was met by two very nice rangers. Who didn't really have any info that could help me. They were keen for me to take the below map...
...which I'd already downloaded and didn't really give me quite the detail I needed to do a decent walk... It's a times like this that you feel really grateful that we have Ordnance Survey in the UK. I finally managed to winkle out enough information to attempt a walk. It was nice enough and I persevered for a couple of hours but the trail was pretty indistinct and after Yosemite (perhaps I've been spoiled a bit!) the scenery was a bit unspectacular.
So, having read about the Thorncrown Chapel which didn't look that far away (ha!) I hopped back into the car and went to check that out. I was very glad that I did despite the 90 minute drive - it's an unexpected delight pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I only had about 15 minutes as they were closing up for the day but managed to grab some photos of it. The chapel really is very peaceful and a great addition to the landscape - not being religious it's hard for me to understand what it must be like to worship there but as a lover of the outdoors it's a spectacular piece of architecture.
Finally back at the hotel I had a glamorous evening of washing my clothes in preparation for the final week of my trip: Atlanta, Nashville, DC to navigate before I get home. Oh, and a Presidential election...
(The title is apparently a US TV show about local government which I haven't managed to catch yet but is supposed to be good - and was appropriate enough for my day today).
(Actually, scratch that, I've just watched an episode on Hulu - it's very good!) Today I had my final meeting with the team at Bentonville City Council - with the Director of Parks and Recreation (see what I did there?). An early start but well worth it to see parts of the City I've not seen yet on a combined drive and walk along the network of trails and seeing the city's extensive parks. The City has had enough foresight to buy up distressed property when it comes on the market to enable it to be converted to park space and there are a range of different uses - including a dedicated dog park for "off leash" dog exercise. A couple of shots;
After this interesting start to the day I want to the WalMart museum at the original store - for a relatively small space there was a huge amount of information and history crammed in. I did feel a little brainwashed at the end of it, but certainly shows a different side to the business and the man who founded it. And it's very well curated and put together. Finally, the day took me to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. For the initiated (like me), this is a world class art museum built by renowned architect Moshe Safdie and funded entirely by Alice Walton, including a $1.4bn (yes, billion) endowment to enable free entry in perpetuity. It's an extraordinary space built with great sensitivity to its location and a great collection as I hope some of the pictures below show - a real sign of the commitment that the Walton family show to the locality that they come from and still live in.
The location of the museum in such a perceived "backwards" place hasn't necessarily gone down well with the art elite on the East and West coast, as seen in this video from the LA Times.
Kind of reminds me of the controversy in 2005 when the Royal Ascot horseracing meeting moved from their usual location to be at York racecourse for a year whilst its home course in Berkshire was being redeveloped. This was great for me as it meant that I got to go to a race meet I wouldn't ever usually see but there were all sorts of comments like, "isn't it a long way away". I distinctly remember John Humphreys on Radio 4 responding in unusually nuanced and subtle way, "well, it's not a long way away if you live in Leeds". (I realise that that will be totally lost on my American readers - sorry). Putting this new art gallery in Arkansas doesn't mean that it's "out of the way" if you live in, say, Fayetteville or Memphis or Oklahoma City...
Anyway, enough provincial chip-on-shoulder ranting, it's been another great day, need to plan tomorrow's fun now!
Something of a packed day today including some serious pre-conceptions squashed, a mini-road-trip and me being presented the Freedom of the City of Bentonville... As per yesterday's brief update I've had most of my original ideas about this part of the country challenged if not totally blown away today. One of my work colleagues told me before I left the UK that for a while he was planning to move here for work and was really looking forward to it. I looked at him a bit strangely and was somewhat sceptical. Well, I'd probably join him on the plane if given the chance now - seriously. Well, maybe I'd hold out a little longer for the Chicago option but this is a strong second! I met with three people from Bentonville City Council - Troy Galloway, the Director of Community Development, Mike Churchwell who heads up Transport and finally Mayor Bob McCaslin. A few thoughts and things learnt;
- Bentonville downtown is brilliant - could almost be a facsimile of a 1930s small-town America used for a film set but it's a living and breathing city centre mixed-use location - shops (including what looks like a great bike shop. I've not allowed myself to go in - there's only so far I can stretch my baggage allowance on flights...), restaurants, bars and offices. I note the irony that this is exactly what opponents of WalMart say their presence destroys but here it is, in their own home-town. A few pics inc one of the original WalMart (a five-and-dime store that's now a museum);
- I knew that WalMart either explicitly or otherwise encourage their suppliers (CocaCola, P&G, Unilever, Kraft, Nestle etc etc) to have an office here but I didn't know how big they were (up to 400 people) nor now many companies have in fact co-located in the Bentonville/Rogers/Fayetteville/Springdale are: around 1400 in total! There are some interesting parallels here with Boeing's supplier base in Seattle and how venture capital and legal firms have strong presences in Silicon Valley. -The City's daytime population pretty much doubles with the commuter influx into the City from surrounding locations but the focus at the moment has been to manage that traffic through more road building rather than any attempt to move people out of their cars. The team know that this is next but haven't yet been able to find a way to ease people out of their cars and into public transit in quite the way we've been able to do it in Nottingham and Europe more generally. - The City's relationship with WalMart is generally very strong but hasn't always been so - back in 2005 the company was working with central government to secure improvements to a particular road and had secured 80% of the funding - the remaining 20% to come from the City. Unfortunately no-one had thought to engage with the team at the Council which led to some red faces and hasty rejigging of budgets... - The Mayor spoke very passionately and from a position of knowledge (he headed up a Bentonville team for Kraft for many years) of the good things that WalMart do and how they operate in an ethical way. I directly asked if WalMart put people out of business and he said that wasn't the case. Like many people I've read books like 'The WalMart Effect' and been sceptical about the value that big-box retailers bring to the consumer landscape so it was great to be challenged in a knowledgeable way on those views. - The Mayor presented me with the Key to Bentonville - as per the photo at the top of this post to celebrate my visit. This was obviously a huge surprise and a great honour.
There's loads more info and detail that I captured but that'll do for now - safe to say that I'm hugely looking forward to my next few days here in NWA!
PS - managed to find some beer at the brilliantly named County Line Liquor today so I'm back in the game on that front. I'm in Benton County as indicated on this map so there are a number of options around but none that are hugely close! I learnt today that there's a ballot inititive (referendum) to make the county 'wet' at next week's vote.
PPS - longtime readers will be excited to hear that I got a haircut today - a snip (haha!) at $13.
Tired after a long day of travel (in no way do I regret saving £30 by booking a flight rather with two changes rather than a direct one to get me from Houston to Bentonville - oh no) but thought I'd just jot down a few thoughts on Bentonville / Arkansas so far. Walmart brings me here - and along with Detroit is probably one of the highlights of the trip for me in terms of my research project for the Roosevelt Scholarship. In no particular order; - when flying into Northwest Arkansas airport I was struck by how green the countryside was. I'd developed this mental image of Bentonville as a sprawling industrial city but it's a pretty small place (about 35,000 people) and set in some great countryside - not for nothing is Arkansas called 'The Natural State'. I think I'll fit in a visit to the Ozark National Forest whilst I'm here. - in the airport the majority of adverts on the walls are for companies focusing on retail and Walmart - offering to help with your supply chain, merchandising, sales etc etc - first sign of a true company town. - the map you get with your hire-car shows all the Walmart head office locations alongside hotels and restaurants - nothing else is worth a mention... - Benton County is dry - something I discuss here but had totally forgotten about. Had I remembered I might have saved myself 20 minutes wandering around a Walmart wondering where they'd put the beer... Meetings with Bentonville City Council tomorrow - more to follow.
