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Picto Diary - 25 to 27 October 2024 - Mason and Sydney

Above: Ironwood Grill, Texarkana, TX 25 October 2024.
We lunched here almost exactly four years ago, then also on a Sprinter trip to Arkansas. The yellow Rubicon in the image is a 392. I didn't notice that fact until the driver pulled out, his jeep belching out the unmistakable, stentorian 392 note. The 392 has a note augmentation button. America. What a country!

Above: Colton's Steakhouse, Cabot, AR. 25 October 2024.

We are joined by Bill and Bonnie Bennett, breeders of our three Newfoundland hounds, Khumbu, K-2, and Freddie. Bill and Bonnie agreed to board Freddie for a couple of nights while TIMDT and Mwah (sic) would attend Mason and Sydney's wedding and visit the Crystal Bridges Museum with niece Lisa and her boyfriend Mark, in Bentonville, AR.

We wondered, prior to dropping Freddie off at the Bennetts, if Freddie would remember his former home, where he lived for his first two years. How would we know if he did? He did remember! On entering the kennel at Wilbon Kennels, Freddie raced up to a dog trap door leading into the Bennett living area. He pushed right through it. We don't have such a dog door flap at our home in Park City, so Freddie didn't familiarize himself with such a door device at our house. Freddie knew he had been at the Bennet's before. Else, how did he know how to race through the dog trap door?

Above: Waffle House. Lonoke, AR. 26 October 2024.

Waffle House. Along with SpaceX and Tesla, the third component of apex American corporate accomplishment.
If In 'N Out can expand east, why can't Waffle House expand west? Westerners could get used to grits, after all. One of the joys of visiting both Waffle House and In 'N Out is observing the presence of well trained and enthusiastic young employees.

Above: Battle of Brownsville marker. Lonoke, AR. 26 October 2024.
Out and about in the Sprinter.

The Battle of Brownsville was fought on August 25, 1863, near what is now Lonoke, Arkansas, between Union forces led by Colonel Washington Geiger and Confederate troops under Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke. Union forces commanded by Major General Frederick Steele were advancing from Helena, Arkansas, towards Little Rock, the state capital of Arkansas. Confederate Major General Sterling Price ordered cavalry led by Marmaduke and Brigadier General Lucius M. Walker to Brownsville in response to the Union advance.
Marmaduke's men defended a forward position, while Walker's remained to the rear in some woods; the plan was for Marmaduke to draw Union troops into an ambush. However, Walker did not come to Marmaduke's aid when a Union brigade commanded by Geiger advanced. Geiger's men drove the outnumbered Confederates from their first position. Reforming, Marmaduke attempted to form another line further to the west, but retreated again after delaying the Union advance. Union troops pursued until nightfall. The campaign against Little Rock continued, and the city was taken on September 10. Wikipedia.

Above: Heber Springs, AR. 26 October 2024.
Out and about in the Sprinter.

TiMDT and Mwah (sic) hang out in the Sprinter in anticipation of Sydney's and Mason's wedding.

Above: Wedding Barn and Event's Center. Heber Springs, AR. 26 October 2024.

Sydney and Mason have the first dance.
Sydney is an RN and Mason works at Federal Express. They have purchased residential land in Trumann, Arkansas, near the home of Jerry, Sydney's Razorback fanatic father, where, after saving enough for a down payment, they will build a home. Two good kids, playing by the rules, looking forward to the future.

Above: Wedding Barn and Events Center. Heber Springs, AR. 26 October 2024.

TIMDT and Mwah (sic) with Lisa, TIMDT's niece, and her boyfriend, Mark. The four of us, along with Lisa's daughters, their husbands and their children, represented the bride's maternal grandparents' side of the family. Lisa is aunt to the bride and sister of the bride's mother Susan. TIMDT is aunt to Lisa and sister to Lisa and Susan's mom, Peggy. Bride, Sydney's mother Susan, who died four years ago, is survived by her husband Jerry and son, Sydney's brother, Grant. We enjoyed talking with Grant and Jerry. I was also happy to get better acquainted with Lisa's (Susan's sister) oldest of two daughters, Chelsea and her husband Ty. Ty is a riverboat captain on the Mississippi and Chelsea raises longhorn steers when she's not mothering her three children. We regretted that Sydney's Mom (Lisa's sister) Susan and Lisa and Susan's mom, and TIMDT's sister Peggy, both recently deceased, weren't present at the wedding.

Above: Crystal Bridges Museum. Bentonville, AR. 27 October 2024.

Jimson Weed/White Flower #1
Georgia O'Keefe

Home | Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

What a fabulous museum!  On a level of quality and scale of other great American interior museums I have visited, the following two, in Wyoming.

Above: Chrystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AR. 27 October 2024.

Cowpuncher's Lullaby
Fredrick Remington.

Above: Chrystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AR. 27 October 2024.

Infinity Mirrored Room.
Yayoi Kusami

Above: Mountain Meadows Massacre Monument, Carrollton, Arkansas. 27 October 2024.

I didn't go looking for this spot, but when, on returning to Harrison, Arkansas after having visited the Chrystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas, i noted a road sign that said, "entering Carroll County," my brain was triggered. I remembered that Carroll County was the start point for the Baker Fancher wagon train that met its demise in southern Utah on 11 September 1857 (a date easy to remember). The "event" has since been referred to as The Mountain Meadows Massacre." I stopped the Sprinter and googled "Fancher monument Carroll County" and, serendipitously, noted that there was a monument in the small town of Carrollton just ten miles further on the same rode on which I was then travelling, US 412. As an amateur student of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, I had to stop to see the Carrollton monument.

I have visited the massacre site several times as it is located only twenty-five miles north, just off UT SR 18, of our home in Ivins, UT. I have read four books about the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

"The Mountain Meadows Massacre," by Juanita Brooks
"Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows," by Will Bagley
"American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows," by Sally Denton
"Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and its Aftermath," by Richard Turley

Following are links to my book reviews of two of the above books:

For over a century, an uncomfortable tension, post massacre, existed between surviving members of the Baker and Fancher families and their descendants who had remained in Arkansas and the LDS Church. The Fanchers saw the massacre as a vengeful, heinous assault on their relatives ordered by Brigham Young himself possibly related to seeking vengeance for the murder of Mormon Apostle, Parley P. Pratt, four months earlier in Alma, Arkansas and claimed ill treatment of Mormons by Arkansas neighbor Missourians in the late 1830's In September of 1857, the Mormons were on the vielle of a visit by Federal Troops seeking to clip Brigham Young's wings as an errant and disobedient Utah Territorial Governor. Tensions were high in Utah at that time as the Baker Fancher wagon train made its way through the territory. No doubt epithets and insults were exchanged between wagon train members and Mormon locals as the wagon train made its way through the state. There are stories coming from the Mormons citing Fancher train members hurling insults about the martyred Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith. Local Mormons claimed members of the Fancher group poisoned a spring resulting in the death of Mormon owned cattle.

The LDS narrative over time has been to regret its members' roles in an unfortunate historical event during difficult, uncertain times, where no one will really ever know the genesis of the slaughter. Only one Mormon perpetrator of the massacre was held accountable. John D. Lee, Cedar City based Mormon Militia official, friend of Brigham Young, was executed for his role in the massacre at the massacre site twenty years later in 1877. The Church has never admitted guilt and, while circumstantial evidence is strong related to Brigham Young's involvement, proof of the Mormon leader's involvement has not been produced. In 2007, the 150th anniversary of the massacre was remembered by a ceremony held in the meadows. Approximately 400 people, including many descendants of those slain at Mountain Meadows and Elder Henry B. Eyring of the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles attended this ceremony. The Church maintains several memorials around the Utah massacre site, including one where an Arkansas state flag flies. It has been assumed that a level of reconciliation has been reached between the Church and the Fancher descendants since that 2007 event. But the wording of the monument here in Carrollton, Arkansas and the verbiage from a Fancher website dedicated to the massacre, would suggest an ongoing level of resentment held against the LDS Church by the Fanchers.

Check the website below for a local interpretation of the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre Historical Marker

Though it wasn't originally on my destination list, I was glad to have seen the Fancher Monument in Carrollton, Arkansas.  It gave me new perspective to see firsthand the area where the Fanchers lived before their departure for California in 1857 and the seeming ongoing, simmering acrimony shown by Fancher descendants, as indicated by the monument itself and the website that backs it up.
PS.  Here Is a piece I found where the writer connects causes of the Mountain Meadows Massacre to the murder, four months earlier, of the beloved apostle, Parley P. Pratt.

Addendum:

Congrats on what appears to be a great trip!

Dagget,
Park City, UT


Steve. We enjoy living vicariously through your travels. Great to hear that Drums is doing so well and immersing himself in his new learning adventures!!

Mezzanine,
Miami, FL

 

Selected feedback on SDT endorsement of Donald Trump for president, 2024.

SDT Presidential Endorsement of DJT | Stephen DeWitt Taylor

 

Terrific!!  A keeper!! Print!!  You were as correct in your assessment of the need for Trump the disrupter in 2015 as you are today.  Your reasoning is well thought out and a vote for Trump today reflects all of the proven good he accomplished for our country between January 2017 through January 2021.  There are however others who contend that the failed and proven incompetent Harris' promise of optimism and joy are far more important to them. For example:
“What Harris and Walz offer is optimism, normality and joy.” – Oberg 8/10/2024
 
Nathans,
Orlando, FL
Well reasoned and stated Steve. Thank you.

I too do not support the social, foreign or financial policies espoused and implemented by the current regime. The “leadership” is weak as evidenced by domestic and world upheaval. The sheer volume of missteps followed by censorship, gaslighting and outright lies is stark and should, at minimum, give pause to any person using their experience and knowledge to make current and future decisions for themselves and their families.
BTW, I had to look him up. Scary guy!  
 
Tony,
Park City, UT