Trish & Anne RV Adventures

Our destination on Wednesday 8/23 was Lake Manawa State Park in Council Bluffs, IA – that is just south of Omaha, NE. Since it was way too hot – over 80 shortly after we woke up and headed to over 100, we looked for some indoor activity along our route. So we took some back roads to go to the Museum of Danish Americans in Elkhorn, IA. We still had the car, so we were driving separately.

This is Victor Borge’s first piano that he donated to the museum. The museum sponsors the Victor Borge Legacy Award Piano Competition for high school students, and the winners play a recital at the museum on this piano.

Of course, there was a Lego wall. And there was a exhibit about innovations by Danes or Danish Americans. This eelgrass insulation was one of those.

That’s not a wheelbarrow, but a cart that can go on the front of a bicycle to hold kids and groceries. We saw lots of carts like this when we were in Amsterdam. The outfit on the right was worn by Leroy Sands, a first generation Danish American. The text stated that he carried a pen or pencil, a small notebook, and a handkerchief — that description reminded me of my Dad, even though I don’t think I ever saw him in overalls.

There were lot’s of stories about Danish Americans – most that I didn’t know. The other shot is from the second floor looking down – showing the neat architecture.

Part of the exhibit space showed the collection while it was in storage – I’ve seen that a couple of times in newer museums. And you have probably seen some of these Danish light designs.

More Danish designs

One of the other things in Elkhorn is this Danish Windmill. In the 1970’s, it was disassembled and brought to the US and reassembled here. It was the last Danish Windmill exported, as shortly after it left the Danes passed a law saying no more could be exported. We could have taken a tour, but it wasn’t air conditioned, so we passed on that. And that’s Hans Christian Andersen, a Dane but not a Danish American.

We split a grilled 3-cheese sandwich and had some salad for lunch at Grace on Main in Elkhorn, before getting back on the road.

When we arrived at the campsite, this was the temperature reading of the sensor that I have near our generator – the generator was not running. Since it was so hot, we turned on the AC and cooled down. There was a beach at the state park, but it was so hot, we figured it wouldn’t really be refreshing. Si instead we took a ride to the local Dick’s to look for a new knapsack, but were not successful. We spotted this flock of turkeys while we were driving through the park. We were so hot we couldn’t think about driving into Omaha so we just settled into the RV with the AC running all night.

On Wednesday while we were driving on the back roads we got a chip in the windshield of the RV from a rock flying off a truck. We were lucky enough to find a Safelite that could take us for an appointment at before 9:30 on Thursday. It was supposed to be a drop off and come back at 5 PM, but by letting them know we had a 4 hour drive planned that day, they were kind enough to take us within the hour. Since we still had the car, we found a grocery store and stocked up on some fresh food, and by the time we were done the RV was ready. They had done their magic with the glass fill, it’s hardly noticeable and our insurance paid!

So it was back to our plan of driving the RV and car to Lincoln, NE so we could visit the state house there. We found a Walmart to park the RV in and set off.

Here are some shots of the exterior of the Capitol. Like Florida, instead of a dome it has a tower. The brochure said the architect wanted to evoke the Nebraska imagery with the low base reflecting the plains and the tower being a beacon to be viewed from miles away. The building was started in 1922 and completed in 1932, in several phases.

We didn’t want to wait the hour for the next guided tour, so went through on our own with the help of the brochure. This is the ceiling and the floor of the rotunda – beautiful mosaic work.

The ceiling of one of the hallways

Nebraska’s legislature has been the nations only Unicameral since 1937. They have 49 state senators that are nominated in a non-partisan primary – top two vote getters go on to the final election. There are no representatives. On the right is a door that I don’t know where it goes, I just like the look.

One of the things at the Capitol is the Nebraska Hall of Fame – some of the folks are above – the Dean of Auctioneers, the Founder of Arbor Day, and the Author of the First Anti-discrimination Legislation.

There were elevators to the 14th floor, where there was an observation deck. They were several of them, but they only held four passengers.

The memorial hall on the 14th floor is dedicated public service workers.

Views from the observation deck. We were surprised by how close these planes were flying to the Capitol – we later found out it was the Blue Devils practicing for an airshow the next day.

After returning the car, we got back on the road, driving some back roads to north central Nebraska.

Scenes of the corn fields, small towns, sprinklers actually running, windmills, small rivers and just gently rolling plains for about two and a half hours.

It was another very hot night in the RV with the AC running.

It was only about an hour drive continuing north to get to South Dakota on Friday, Aug 25. It turned out the weather broke for a day, with the projected highs of mid-80’s. We didn’t have too many days scheduled in SD, so we figured it would be the right time to get our golf in.

So we stopped at the Burke Golf Club, where Trish beat me by a couple of stokes even though I was the only one to get a par. Neither of us got a birdie, but we did spot this goldfinch.

After golf, it was more non-interstate driving to get to our campground in SD, which was just outside Badlands National Park.

They use every space to grow hay – even the sides of the road where we saw the round bales being made. This was outside the huge fields we were driving by.

Popoki watching the scenery go by and hay fields.

Then there were these fields of sunflowers everywhere. Not sure if there were different varieties, or whether they were planted at different times, but some of the flowers had lots of colorful petals while on some others the petals seemed very small.

I’m going to end this post here so I can put all of our Badlands photos in one post. I’m going to try to get that together tomorrow, for I feel I’m falling behind and I know that the internet connections will not be very good once we make it to Yellowstone.

Til the next time, safe travels!