{"id":13478,"date":"2016-07-11T14:50:20","date_gmt":"2016-07-11T21:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=13478"},"modified":"2016-08-24T10:22:38","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T17:22:38","slug":"happy-birthday-america-in-the-middle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=13478","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday, America. In The Middle."},"content":{"rendered":"

We woke up in Dubuque, Iowa and hit the\u00a0Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium<\/a> for the day.<\/p>\n

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The museum was good for a brief explanation of Indian tribes that lived in the area, the first explorers and settlers that arrived, and the Mississippi River’s animal life and ecosystem. \u00a0There’s a steamboat to tour and an outdoor nature walk. \u00a0But for us, the best part was the animals. \u00a0The eagles and hawk were being fed when we arrived and they put on quite a show with lots of excited activity and raucous calls. \u00a0We’ve seen raptors plenty of times but never heard the range of vocalizations that we heard that day as their handler prepared their food.<\/p>\n

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The otters were swimming, diving, and kanoodling.<\/p>\n

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There was an octopus that likes to rise to top of the tank and splash visitors.<\/p>\n

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And one of the guides was insistent we stay to see the paddlefish feeding. \u00a0 Which was odd because the paddlefish didn’t look like much….<\/p>\n

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until the food arrived and their mouths fell open. \u00a0Wide, freaky, open.<\/p>\n

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After the museum we had our first long drive in the car. \u00a0It was 5 hours to our next stop in Omaha, Nebraska which would put us almost in the middle of the country. \u00a0It was a long 5 hours and there was nothing to see until the first of the windmills appeared on the horizon.<\/p>\n

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We would become accustomed to these monstrosities as we headed west but the first few were shocking to see. Their size is tremendous. \u00a0After the trip I checked out a documentary called Windfall<\/a> and learned that the windmills are 40 stories high with 130′ blades that weigh 7 tons and spin at 130 miles per hour. \u00a0They are so sleek and so jarring in the landscape that they seem like alien lifeforms and they increased in number and frequency as we headed west.<\/p>\n

We made a stop in Boys Town<\/a> , which no one in my family except me had ever heard of.<\/p>\n

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I checked out the movie <\/a>with Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney before the trip but we never got a chance to watch it. \u00a0So the kids were mystified as to why I wanted to stop at an orphanage in the middle of nowhere. \u00a0But since we were driving through town we stopped, checked out the small visitors center, and did the audio tour in our car. \u00a0 The grounds, buildings, and neighborhood homes were lovely. \u00a0The story of Father Flanagan was inspirational and even the work done by the institution with children and families today is impressive. \u00a0But it was also very, very quiet. \u00a0With lots of cops. \u00a0Police car after police car cruised through the empty streets (The town has its own police, fire, and post office). \u00a0We didn’t see a single child until we were leaving and then it was 2 boys who skateboarded by slowly on the sidewalk, staring at us. \u00a0We were mystified. \u00a0It was early evening on a summer day. \u00a0School must be out, dinner over, where were the kids? \u00a0The families? \u00a0Instructors? \u00a0Anyone?? \u00a0The kids thought it was creepy and I agreed that it all seemed a little Stepford-ish. \u00a0But no one in my family had never heard of The Stepford Wives.<\/a> Apparently in addition to more traveling, my family needs a little more popular culture.<\/p>\n

The best part of Omaha, though, was Jack & Mary’s Restaurant<\/a>. \u00a0We kept to our vow of not eating fast food and for the entire trip we either ate sandwiches out of the cooler in the car or heated up prepacked microwave meals in the hotel room when we were on the road. \u00a0That way, we had money to eat at local restaurants or try regional foods when we were in town. \u00a0So we settled in at Jack & \u00a0Mary’s to try the “best onion rings in Omaha.” \u00a0And they were<\/em> great onion rings! \u00a0But we really enjoyed the operating hours sign on the door. \u00a0Living in a small town, we were very familiar with finding our local stores and restaurants closed during what seemed like normal business hours. \u00a0We’ve seen storefronts locked even when the sign says they are supposed to be open and we’ve seen plenty of stores with a note stuck to the door saying the owner will be right back. \u00a0Jack & Mary’s made no bones about the often random hours of local businesses in small towns. \u00a0Right on the front door it stated that they were open “Monday -Thursday 11am- close<\/em>.” \u00a0Because they close when they’re closed. And that’s all you need to know.<\/p>\n

We slept in Kearney, Nebraska and went to the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument<\/a> first thing in the morning.<\/p>\n

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This area of Nebraska is known as the stopping point for Sandhill Cranes during their spring migration in March and April. \u00a0We were there, though, to visit the Archway museum which commemorates the convergence of the Oregon Trail, Mormon Trail, and California Trail near Fort Kearny. \u00a0The museum is great for families—when you enter you’re given a set of headphones to wear and pointed up the escalator to the beginning of the trail.<\/p>\n

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Once inside, the headphones pick up the dialogue for the room and change as visitors move along markers on the path. \u00a0It follows the push of settlers (for land, gold, or religion) out west and explains the journey in their own words—collected from journals and diaries. \u00a0Everyone could move along at their own pace, taking in as much as the exhibit as they wanted before moving on or doubling back and the headphones would adjust automatically (magic!). \u00a0The exhibits were life-size with great sound effects and background screen that could reflect sunrise or a starry night or the lightning flashes of storms. \u00a0It was a great introduction to the westward migration and throughout our trip we would cross a lot of the areas we learned about at the Archway.<\/p>\n

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Even better, it discussed the transition of the trail as the stagecoaches, then the Pony Express, then the telegraph, then the railroad changed the way America connected to the west coast. \u00a0It even covered how the trail became the Lincoln Highway, linking Americans to the newly created national parks….<\/p>\n

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and eventually becoming Interstate 80 which was what we traveled through most of the state. \u00a0The Archway actually runs over the highway and has a viewpoint where you can see Americans traveling the same path that was traveled for a hundred years before them, just a whole lot faster!<\/p>\n

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After we left the museum, we hit Broken Bow, Nebraska and got on the Sandhills Journey Scenic Byway<\/a> (via Rte 2). \u00a0There’s a free tiny visitor center which had some maps as well as a history of cattle ranching and wildlife in the area. \u00a0Out back was a windmill that drew up fresh drinking water which we were invited to use. \u00a0The landscape was dotted with these small windmills providing water for livestock so for inquiring minds (like Big) it was great to see up close and examine the working parts and their functions. \u00a0 For others (like me) it was cool, fresh water that came up from the ground without having to use a hand pump.<\/p>\n

The Sandhills are the largest grass covered sand dunes in the Western Hemisphere and cover the nation’s largest underground water supply. \u00a0When we got out at the visitor center all we could hear was the swishing of the grass in the wind and the profuse twitter of birdsong throughout the brush. \u00a0For the 68 miles of the byway that we traveled, this is what we saw:<\/p>\n

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And, for the first time, I understood, I mean, really understood<\/em> the size of America. \u00a0Where fields and hills can roll along with nothing but grass and birds all the way to the horizon. \u00a0The middle is a big, big place.<\/p>\n

The last stop in Nebraska was Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge.<\/a> We didn’t get to see any of the bison or elk herds but we did discover our first prairie dog town.<\/p>\n

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There was a great easy 30 minute hike down to Fort Falls and returning along the river banks, although we did pick up our first out-of-state ticks as free souvenirs. \u00a0Which reminded why I hated free souvenirs.<\/p>\n

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We gave the resident horses some nose scratches….<\/p>\n

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and headed for South Dakota. \u00a0We knew we were close because the landscape was changing. \u00a0The plains were giving way and something big and bad was just up ahead….. (to be continued)<\/p>\n

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We woke up in Dubuque, Iowa and hit the\u00a0Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium for the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13478"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14045,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13478\/revisions\/14045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}