Mountain Musings

Arkansas ~ There and Back Again! ~ Part 4, Presidential Library

Once we arrived in Arkansas, one of our first stops was the Visitor Center located in downtown Little Rock not far from the Clinton Presidential Library & Museum.  It turned out to be a very worthwhile stop to learn about the area, collect brochures, and tour their lovely flower garden. This delightful garden was located behind the Visitor Center and maintained by the local Master Gardeners and definitely worth a quick drop-in: After we left the Visitor Center, we were off to find our anticipated lunch spot on the itinerary..."42," a restaurant named after the 42nd President of the United States and located inside the Clinton Presidential Library.

The Clinton Presidential Park Bridge is adjacent to the Museum and beckoned us for pictures before we went in for lunch:The bridge is actually a pedestrian and cyclist bridge and connects Little Rock to North Little Rock by spanning the Arkansas River. Here I am on the bridge:And here's a view from the bridge of downtown Little Rock and the Arkansas River:Even though our political leanings aren't in this direction at all, we visited the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum for the history and respect for the office: In the photo below, we are outside on the patio...very pleasant. My lunch selection (back left): 1/2 Presidential Club with 1/2 Bowl of Chicken & Rice Basil Soup (delicious!). 

My sister's lunch was the Barbecue Braised Chicken Wrap, Mixed Greens, Diced Tomato, and House Barbecue Sauce in a Honey Wheat Tortilla served with a side of Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Sweet Potato Chips:After lunch we made our way back upstairs to start our tour of the Museum: Here we are touring a replica of the Cabinet Room:  And we both tried out the President's Chair:The Museum displays 4,536 Blue Boxes which contain presidential records and represent 2 - 3% of the entire Clinton Library archival collection which is estimated at 80 million pages: The Museum was actually very interesting. Here's one display that I'd never heard of before...the Little Rock Nine. We ended up driving by the high school where this incident took place and also going to see the statues of the Nine, located on the grounds at the State Capitol:Here's a replica of the Oval Office, which was very elegant. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the room...only at the doorway looking in (an official Museum photographer was assigned to take each guest's picture sitting behind the presidential desk...for a fee, hence, we couldn't take our own):I enjoyed seeing this State Dinner table setting of the Clintons' White House china collection: Many more pictures I could post of our visit here, but this gives you an idea of some of the things we saw while at the Museum.

Have you been to this library in Little Rock? If you go, allow time to leisurely visit all the displays, tour the gift shop, watch the movie shown about the Clintons, and grab a bite to eat at 42!

I enjoyed our visit here and was glad we put it on the itinerary!

~Deb

Arkansas ~ There and Back Again! ~ Part 5, Final Highlights

Arkansas ~ There and Back Again! ~ Part 3, Luncheon

After the Garden Tour and the House Tour and additional free time to wander taking pictures, we were told to meet at the Barn whenever we heard the farmhouse dinner bell ring to summon us for lunch.

We could hardly wait to sample recipes made from P. Allen Smith's Seasonal Recipes From The Garden Cookbook. Our meal was made by his chef and served by lots of smiling hostesses.

We were greeted at the Barn door as we all entered. Antique lanterns were prominently displayed on a long wooden table just outside the Barn door.  Here's our delicious menu. We had already been told that the Buttermilk Pecan Pie recipe was worth the price of the cookbook:Here are our servers delivering the food as we all find our seats: Here's our plate of delicious Chicken Salad over a bed of greens. It all looked delicious: There was one empty spot at our table, and we were hoping Mr. Smith would make his way to it...("over here P. Allen, over here!") but alas, he was already slotted to sit with special visitors at their reserved table. Oh, well, next time: After the meal, he answered questions from our group for quite a while. He was quite interesting and very entertaining as he told us about buying the property and lots of other facts about Moss Mountain. We could tell that he loved entertaining his guests: The large vegetable paintings that decorated the barn walls were done by Mr. Smith and smaller versions were sold in his gift shop, although with a price tag: After lunch was over, Mr. Smith signed his cookbooks for anyone wishing to purchase one from the gift shop: Of course, both my sister and I bought one since it's a very useful souvenir of our visit, don't you think? There's a pie recipe on page 240 and a cookie recipe on page 180 we have to try out!: And here's my sister Bet after he signed her book: As we prepared to leave after everything was over, I was so thankful to have had the opportunity to visit P. Allen Smith's Moss Mountain farm. I had talked about making this trip so many times, and even in the rain it was beautiful!

These two sisters had a very delightful Sister Trip! After driving that far from home, we planned other excursions while in Arkansas. What else did we do, you ask?

Well...I guess that's Part 4....and Part 5. Stay tuned.

~ Deb

Arkansas ~ There and Back Again! ~ Part 2, House

Hello, Monday! Hello, Everyone! Are you back for Part 2?

P. Allen Smith's home at his Moss Mountain Farm is located in Roland, Arkansas, about 40 minutes from our Bed and Breakfast in Little Rock (more on our lodgings in another post).

My sister and I toured this beautiful property a couple of weeks ago. (Read Part 1 here.)

This enormous 350-year old oak tree, known as the "Big Sister," is the centerpiece of the front yard. Our tour guide told us there are six other sister trees scattered around the property. Mr. Smith chose this location specifically to build his home:The side and back views (below) of the home are just as lovely. The screened-in porches face the Arkansas River, and I'll show you a few scrolls down what's behind those screened porches you see at the back of the house: Here's a closer view of the side yard. I love all the flowers, especially all the purples and the bright pink hydrangea peeking out from behind the white decorative fencing:As we entered his home, this is our view of the entrance hallway, quite classy: And here's the living room with part of our tour group browsing the decor. Can you imagine 80 people trooping through your living room every Thursday and Friday for weeks while the tours are held?: Being a quilter, of course I would spot this log cabin patterned rug in one of the rooms: One of my favorite rooms was the kitchen, of course! It was so bright and full of fresh flowers. Warm cookies from the oven baked by P. Allen's Aunt Jamie were available for all the guests: Here's his lovely Aunt Jamie, who was just delightful to talk with. When I told her the cookies were amazing and asked what was in them, she smiled and said, "oh, lots of things...the recipe is on page 180 in his cookbook!" Needless to say, the deliciousness of her cookies equaled more sales in his gift shop that day! Beautiful bouquets decorated the main island in the kitchen. I think I'm going to start bringing more of my outside flowers inside!: Let's head upstairs and see that screened in porch area. Can you believe this? Three twin beds were set up in this open-air room facing the river to create a sleeping porch! The next photo shows the view these guests enjoy: This photo showing the back of the property and the Arkansas River in the distance is taken from the screened in porch...(the building is the Art Studio, completely furnished.) Imagine sitting up in bed reading and looking out at this scene: And if any of the three guests using those beds need a bath while there....then here you go--wide open to the outside world (the screened porch is to the right)!: P. Allen Smith's bedroom includes this antique bed which belonged to the last territorial governor of Arkansas, William Fulton: Upstairs also included guest rooms, a children's room, sitting area, and writing desk corner....

A final view from one of the upstairs windows...I think I spy two more of the sister trees! Mr. Smith is very willing to open his private home and gardens for tours, and we enjoyed it all very much. And the luncheon is still to come!

Check back in a couple of days to read about the delicious food prepared for his guests ~ Part 3!

~Deb

Arkansas ~ There and Back Again! ~ Part 1, Gardens

Hellooo,....patient people! I promised to be back on the blog mid-June after returning from our sister trip to Arkansas to show you some of the sights my sister and I enjoyed while we were there. Bottom line: yes, we had a great time!

I arrived home this past weekend, and these last few days have been a wild ride of catching up! I'm still not unpacked! I think I should get to that today...

In the meantime, here we are at Moss Mountain Farm...the highlight and main reason for our trip!Unfortunately, umbrellas were the rule of the morning...here's part of our tour group headed out to the gardens. P. Allen Smith was just arriving and shook hands with us as he headed to the main house.

We were so glad to meet him and learn that he would be in attendance during our luncheon--something that couldn't be promised when I selected the date we would travel:We started the outside part of the tour at the barns/planting sheds where all sorts of plants were growing. P. Allen Smith is in partnership with Bonnie Plants for testing purposes, and everywhere we looked plants were growing--in huge pots, in the ground, and in the vegetable garden:Everything was well-maintained and wonderfully green and healthy!The lady in the straw hat on the right was our garden tour guide. All the vegetables were growing on both sides of this graveled walkway:We then made our way down to the Rose Garden:Here's another view. As you can see the area is beautiful, even though the sprinkles kept coming:My sister, Betty, in the Rose Garden: Like I mentioned, absolutely everywhere we looked there were beautiful flowers to see: I was taking pictures left and right while balancing my umbrella:Having a flower garden this beautiful takes a lot of work:And another view as I walked on: 

Pots and pots of flowers by the fountain:Here's the front of the house (only nine years old but made to look aged like an 1800's house would look) with our tour guide giving us information and instructions before we go inside for the house tour: And the house tour is Part 2...and the luncheon is Part 3, so stay tuned.

~Deb