A Day With Sunshine!

Although today has surprised us with more sun than expected, yesterday was to be the only day with sunshine this week …or next. We grabbed it to take a ride in warm sunshine. Although it only got to about 45, that was a heat wave to us, and sun through the glass of truck windows made it feel double that temp. We had no real goal and did not want to venture far. So we got on the highway and headed to the border, southern one that is. With the new highway being added to here and there at different times, it is now like a string of old fashioned sausages strung together. The long strand makes getting to the border of Arkansas a little less than an hour. The trial is getting through the urban sprawl of places like Bentonville (think Wal-mart). One strip mall, office building, car wash, hamburger joint, quick lube right after another. Now Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale, and Fayetteville are almost one city.

We did not want to do all that and took the old highway into Bentonville. A new Goodwill store had just opened up. If you haven’t considered Goodwill for inexpensive books, do so. In Kentucky I found a nearly new copy of Mary Pipher’s Reviving Ophelia for a dollar. In this Goodwill I ran into yet another Pipher, The Shelter of Each Other. This book had never been opened other than to be signed by the author. I got it for $2. Of course books are not arranged in any order in a Goodwill;you have to be willing to peruse the shelves, but it can often be well worth the effort.


On to a couple of flea markets that were full of the usual. Hubby found a German drafting set with all pieces in tact, but he would not add it to his collection because it was too pricey. I found a round Blue Willow serving platter. Although I have several platters and a round cake platter, sometimes they aren’t right for a large cake or a yeasty bread ring. This Willow was pretty new, but it was priced not much more than a mere dinner plate. It came home with us.


A late lunch in the Tea Room at Vinson Square in a sunny window began to wind down the day. Done in a shabby chic motif and including an Arkansas Razorback Room for dining fans, the tea room serves usual tea room fare. Their two specialties would be a meal sized baked potato with choice of toppings (including a stroganoff one) and an orange yeast roll that is good enough to be considered dessert or a soup accompaniment. Lunch was followed by a trip around the corner into a very expensive antique store where I was afraid to breathe for fear of toppling some flow blue and a stop in a used book store run by a sweet little old fellow. The day was all the mid-winter excursion we wanted, and we headed home to wait for spring!


Vinson Square Tea Room can be visited on line at www.thetearooms.com .