Doll House Delivery Service!

If you have been following my blog for the last few years, you know that since retiring in 2017, one of the things I have been doing to keep myself busy is building several doll houses for grandchildren.  In each case, there has been a delivery involved where I had to carefully load up the doll house in the back of my wife’s Subaru Outback.  That first delivery, on Christmas Day in 2020, was just a short five miles away to our in-town granddaughter’s home.

Then, in September of 2021, my wife and I drove from our home in Memphis, TN out to California to deliver a doll house to our other granddaughter who lives just south of San Francisco (click here for that story).

The following May, my sister and I drove out to California in her truck to deliver the doll house she and I had been building together for her grandchildren who lived north of Los Angeles (click here for that story).

We had so much fun building that doll house together that we decided to do another one just like it for my sister.

So, in April of this year, I made my fourth doll house delivery, although this one was not a cross country trek of about 2,000 miles like two of my previous deliveries.

Thanks to my wife’s yoga equipment, I was able to carefully load the doll house once again into the back of my wife’s car and cushion it for its 375-mile ride across Arkansas to my sister’s home in northwest Arkansas.

Ever since encountering a devastating hailstorm on my drive over last year to my sister’s, I get nervous when I come to the same spot on I-40 close to Russellville, AR.  Typically, it seems I am driving through there late in the day when afternoon storms are quite frequent.  And as I passed through Little Rock on my way, I could see the skies beginning to turn grey and storm clouds brewing ahead. Fortunately, this time the storms stayed south of me, and I did not even encounter rain.

When I arrived at my sister’s house, she was standing outside with my other sister waving their arms. To me, it seemed my sister was giddy with child-like glee as we carried the doll house into her home and placed it on a table.  She had a really big smile as I snapped her photo with the new addition.

She then quickly grabbed the first piece of furniture to put in her home, a miniature Eames Lounge Chair.

Now that it is at my sister’s house, she will be building more furniture for it.  She also plans to build cabinets and appliances for the blue kitchen on the first floor.  Having discovered this shared love for building and enjoying miniature houses, I know my sister will have hours of fun furnishing her new little home.

This was to be a short trip of only two nights away for me so the next day, we packed in as many activities as we could.  After coffee and breakfast, my oldest sister and I went to mass at her church nearby.  It was a most enjoyable service.

Then after lunch, my sister and I installed several outdoor lights of a much more modern design than the aging, brass coach lights, original to the house.

Then another needed project was to replace the steps leading up to her storage shed…

…with new pressure treated wood.

Having had a busy activity day, we made plans to meet one of her sons and daughter-in-law at a local craft brewery, a just reward for a hard day’s work.

After dinner, my sister and I went for our nightcap, a walk through the North Forest at Crystal Bridges to view the Listening Forest by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.

If you have not been to Crystal Bridges before, I cannot recommend it enough to be one of your future destinations.  It is truly amazing what a world class museum has been created in northwest Arkansas by Alice Walton, sole daughter of Sam Walton.

This special show, started at 8:15 PM with a guide’s explanation of what to expect with the multiple interactive displays that combined light and sound to create impressive art installations.

You first walk across this stream of ever moving texts and letters..

…and at this field of white lights, you hold your hand under a sensor and then watch the lights pulse to your heartbeat.

At this display, your motions are translated and mimicked in color…

…while at this one, a twenty-five-foot robot tower with multiple lasers matches your body’s motion.

All these still photos do not do justice to the incredible show so you can click on the Crystal Bridges link above (at least through December 2023) to see a brief video of the remarkable displays and learn more about each one.  In fact, when my sister videoed me with the laser robot, she said afterwards that it was really me that she was filming as I was the show.

Afterwards on our way back to our car, we stopped off to watch the Buckyball, an intriguing everchanging light display.

It was a great day of productive projects, a nice family visit, and a memorable experience at Crystal Bridges.  When we got back to my sister’s house, we were greeted with the new outdoor bright lights we had installed earlier.

The next morning, I had to drive back to Memphis, and it was sad to be leaving after such a short trip but knowing that we would be having much more miniature doll house fun together in the future.