Caroline Morse, a writer for a website called SmarterTravel.com, recently compiled a list of the 10 best free attractions our nation has to offer.
Almost all of her selections - from The Getty Center in Los Angeles to Central Park in New York City - are in major cities.
Others include the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. All great sights to see.
I appreciate this kind of list. Traveling is expensive.
It’s helpful to remember there are attractions that don’t require you to take out a loan in order to see them.
Isn’t that right, Disneyland (now $87 per adult for one day)?
That got me to thinking about places around here that can be enjoyed for free, or at least for a small price.
The obvious one is Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which is free with the exception of the occasional special exhibit.
Crystal Bridges didn’t make Morse’s list. I’m not surprised. There’s too much competition nationwide.
Also, my guess is she was focused primarily on cities known for being vacation destinations. That’s not Bentonville.
That’s just fine with me.
Crystal Bridges already has received its fair share of national publicity. But it’s worth remembering and appreciating what atreat Crystal Bridges is to those who live near it - particularly because it’s free.
It’s not just the art. My family and I frequently use the trails surrounding the museum. Those trails are some of the few places around here where you can walk outside with plenty of trees to block the scorching sun.
These trails can get you closer to nature. Last week my son and I took an earlyevening walk on the Crystal Bridges Trail. We saw fi ve deer, including two babies trailing their mama. One adult deer let us get within 10 feet of him as he calmly munched on some twigs.
(He must not have viewed me as the gun-toting type.)We watched him for a couple of minutes before marching onward.
Of course, Crystal Bridges isn’t Northwest Arkansas’ only free attraction.
There is the Jones Center in Springdale, which is free except for reasonable fees for swimming and ice skating. There are the various parks in our various communities. The Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale and the Rogers Historical Museum both are free, as is the Walmart Visitor Center in downtown Bentonville.
What other fun things can you do around here at no cost? Email me your ideas. I’ll mention them in a future column.
My “wake-up call to Bentonville” column last week, bemoaning the atrocious turnout in last month’s millage election on a second high school, drew some feedback, which I was happy to receive.
One online commenter didn’t like that I came down so hard on thevoters. As the anonymous writer put it, “I don’t like the fact you slap the voter down and fail to make a point about stopping all the special elections. Case in point is the upcoming school board election.
Why now? Why not in November?”
Fair enough, but it should be pointed out I’ve been as strong a proponent as anyone of doing away with special dates for school board elections.
For example, in my column of Oct. 3, 2011, in The Benton County Daily Record, I wrote: “It’s time to stop pretending that school boards deserve their own special time for elections every September - especially when no onebothers to turn out for them. Hold the elections in November; at least then you can roll them into municipal, state and federal elections every other year. This year we couldhave combined school board elections with the Nov. 8 statewide election on a bond program for Arkansas’ interstate highways. We could have had two birds with one stone.”
That was basically a rewording of my column from Aug. 30, 2010, in which I declared: “There’s no reason - ahem, no GOOD reason - to hold a separate election for school boards in September when there’s another perfectly good election day only six weeks later.”
That’s twice in two years I have banged the drum for election reform. Consider the drum beaten again.
But you can only whine about the system so much. It’s no excuse for refusing to weigh in on a $128 million tax question.
DAVE PEROZEK IS EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR FOR NORTHWEST ARKANSAS NEWSPAPERS.
Opinion, Pages 13 on 07/22/2012