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For a Day Out (we get them rarely, so it deserves capitalization), we did a run to Northwest Arkansas yesterday. Highway 12 slithers like a snake through tree tunnels for miles until you find an off-road that leads to War Eagle Mill, a working flour mill with folksy gifts and coarse ground cornmeal for sale. The way back always includes a detour to a picnic area on Beaver Lake—on a Tuesday, it was deliciously silent. We watched minnows do laps around the dock and a bald eagle do laps around the lake.

Um…tea. Oh, yeah.

Eventually, you have to drive back into civilization with some upscale big-city shopping venues, including Savoy Tea. We hadn’t been in the shop since before the plague, and it’s been streamlined—instead of a tea parlor vibe with curlicues and frills, it’s leaner and cleaner and looks like a tea lab.

However, the Great Wall of Tea is just as much fun as it ever was with little sample sniffy jars and we brought home a nice little cache, including these dragon balls, beautiful little dark-and-gold orbs.

The scent of the steeped cup this morning was so promising I expected eye-rolling pleasure, but due to operator error (I over-watered and under-balled), the melba toast flavor I expected was only barely detectible, even though the texture was nice and satiny on the tongue. Eh, there’s always tomorrow!