On Wisconsin - to the Art Metal Shindig

We slept in a bit, and then headed north to Dyersville, Iowa, the home of the Farm Toy museum and an impressive Basilica built in the late 1800s. The farm toy museum was quite large, representing farm toys, past and present, US and Europe. Marianne worked through their quiz and won the prize, a pencil that changes color with temperature.



The Basilica was quite impressive, kind of a neo-gothic style, seats 1000 people, kind of amazing for a small town.



Then we pressed on through Dubuque Iowa, across the Mississippi River, and into Wisconsin. We stopped at a tourist information center, but there was no one there and very little information. Our destination for the art-metal shindig was Rich's home, out in the country a few miles south of Madison Wisconsin.



We found it with no trouble, and were warmly greeted. It took Richard an hour or so to get the camper leveled out, due to sloping ground, but he was ultimately successful. Then we could relax and chat and watch other people demonstrate various techniques. Dinner was around 8 PM, and involved more chatting. There was even some sculpture made by arranging forks! As we say, "Oooh, shiny!". We are easily amused. Marianne thought that the people were kind of leftover hippies, which is true. The age group is roughly 50 to 70. Talented and interesting people.




Saturday, Richard started working on a railroad spike knife. Michael had given a demo on Friday, which Richard missed, but Michael was willing to walk Richard through it. More or less basic blacksmithing, hot work on a hot day. First Richard twisted part of the knife as the handle, and then he continued hammering out the blade by hand and by power hammer. We did a little grinding to clean up the knife and sharpen the blade, and then hardened the blade. Good practice, good learning. We had a good group dinner, as we did every evening.



Chris and Richard with their hand and hat, "Hat in Hand".


Sunday, Richard and Marianne drove into Madison to go to church, and drive around the town. We saw the state capitol, but did not tour it, and drove around the huge university campus. Sunday was more socializing, although Richard did a little foldforming.



Monday, we packed up and started our drive to Illinois, to visit Teresa and her family.

The Capital's Capitol is Capital

The Capital's Capitol is Capital, or to paraphrase, Lincoln's Capitol building is excellent.

We visited this Art Deco building Wednesday morning.

When Nebraska's previous capitol building started to deteriorate, they hired New York architects and artists to design a new building. The building was constructed over ten years, on a pay as you go philosophy. The building is full of symbolism, in the Art Deco style, including the sun and its energy, animals whose fossil records were found in Nebraska, and others too numerous to mention. Our guide was good and enthusiastic. Perhaps the most interesting story was the 1888 blizzard, in which a pleasant day changed to a desperate blizzard in an hour. One 15 year old teacher kept her children in their school until the storm ripped the roof off, when she tied a cord to each student and let them through the blizzard to a farmhouse. The image below is of the door to the unused legislative chamber, as Nebraska switched to a single body of the legislature (unicameral) after the building was completed.

After visiting the capitol, we hit the road. Our first stop was the Iowa visitor center, where we collected maps, brochures, and suggestions. Our next stop was to a Danish windmill, moved from Denmark to a Iowa village homesteaded by Danes. The scenery is rolling and beautiful.


We camped at Anita Lake State Park, another beautiful place.


On Thursday, we drove to Amana, Iowa, where we had a good lunch at the Ox Yoke restaurant, and Marianne visited the famous quilt store. Amana is part of the Amana Colonies, a religious settlement that was a collective until the 1930s, when they voted to separate the material from the religious. This was our 32nd wedding anniversary. We stopped for the night in Monicello, Iowa.

Cornhusker Capital

We got up late, after a stormy night in which our weather radio went off three times, before I turned it off. Severe thunderstorm watches and warnings, flood watches, no tornadoes. Lots of lightning in the distance.

The drive to Lincoln was less than 200 miles, so not a big deal. We ended up at the private campground in Lincoln, has a good rating, and is pretty nice.


We had time to do one thing this afternoon before things closed, so we went to the International Quilt Center, which had interesting exhibits of quilts from the Indian subcontinent. I really liked the modern quilts done by Hortense Beck, traditional but bold, with a high level craftsmanship. Unfortunately, no photos allowed in the museum, so I took one outside. We visited the famous Dairy Store at the university of Nebraska, part of their food program since 1917,an institution, good ice cream.

Heading East

We got away from the house at 10 AM Monday, and headed for I-76, across the plains, mostly following the South Platte River. We stopped at the visitor center in Julesburg Colorado, to find a group of model A Fords following the route of the Pony Express. The visitor center has a large statue of a rider on the pony express.


Continuing east, we quickly found ourselves on I-80, but with somewhat less traffic than we expected. We were both getting tired, but wanted to press on past North Platte, Nebraska, to have a shorter drive the following day to Lincoln Nebraska. We were aiming for Johnson Lake State Park, south of Livingston. We were both happy to pull into the campground, a little before 6 PM. The campground is grassy, with shade trees, and electricity, pretty nice. Richard cooked a very simple dinner, and then walked over to the swimming beach. He chatted briefly with the folks there, memorably a woman with several front teeth missing, not something that you see often in upscale Boulder Colorado.

Cheyenne and then home

We drove down to Cheyenne on Monday, a fairly easy drive due to low wind. We stopped in Chugwater for a malt, slightly disappointing because they were out of chocolate.

Judy and Geneva greeted us at the door. Stephen and Ron showed up later. Judy prepared us a very good dinner, something for everyone, with eight people around the table. The girls slept in Judy's house.



In the morning, we said goodbye to Judy, and headed for Boulder. We all cleaned out the camper, ate lunch, and rested a bit. Stace came by and picked up the girls, and it was all over.

Casper

We enjoyed our visit to the National Trails Museum. It discusses the Oregon Trail, the California trail taken by the 49ers, the Mormon Trail to Salt Lake City, and the Pony Express, all of which followed the North Platte River through the town of Casper. They parted ways on the other side of the continental divide, after South Pass. We rode the wagon across the river and the stagecoach as well, gave us some sense of the danger and hardships of the trail.

After that, we headed over to the Nicholasen Art museum, where we enjoyed an exhibit of art with a shoe theme. There was a wide range of techniques and ideas, including a collection of 416 bronzed baby shoes, glass shoes, paper shoes, etc. Fun, something that we all could enjoy.

We went to mass at St. Anthony's church, 90 years old next week, on the historic register.

We had a good dinner at Asian Bistro, split two dishes between four people, so not too expensive.

The girls swam in the KOA pool to close out the day.

The photo is of our cats. This was their first trip in the camper, so they were a bit traumatized, and spent a lot of time in the closet. Later they came out more.

On to Casper

We got up fairly early on Saturday and headed for Casper Wyoming. We stopped on the road for a few minutes due to a car fire. After a lunch stop near Lusk, we made it to Douglas Wyoming, which bills itself as home of the Jackalope, a mythical beast.

We had read that the pioneer museum in Douglas was good, so we headed to the fairgrounds. The pioneer museum was indeed good, with all kinds of strange artifacts, including a huge pair of coveralls belonging to a 500 pound man.

We continued on to to the KOA at Casper,a pretty nice KOA, where the girls swam in the pool.

The Pool and the Cave

On Friday, we decided to go to the pool and the cave. Marianne decided that she needed to rest, so Richard and the girls headed to the cave after breakfast.

The natural entrance to the cave was very small, no fat men need apply. It is called wind cave because of the strong wing that often flows into or out of the cave, due to changes in atmospheric pressure. The ranger is using a piece of tape to demonstrate the wind. The cave is unique because of its "boxwork", thin sheets that come down from the ceiling. These are due to cracks in the limestone being filled by mineral deposits, which are more resistant to dissolving in water relative to the limestone.

The tour was somewhat strenuous in that there were 300 stairs, with narrow low passageways. Richard bumped his head a few times.

After lunch, we headed for the pool and hot springs known as Evans Plunge. This is more of a warm springs than a hot springs. It has a large pool like Glenwood Springs, with a gravel bottom. There are three water slides, including one that is short and steep and feels like a free fall. Ari met a girl staying in our campground, Sierra, and spend most of the time with her.

Heavy rains and lightning hit in late afternoon, confining us to our camper. Richard ended up walking Ari and Sierra back to Sierra's camper after dark.

Crazy Horse Memorial, Mt. Rushmore, and Custer State Park

We started at the Crazy Horse Memorial. This was new for all of us, as Marianne and I had only seen it from a distance. This was the 62nd anniversary of the dedication, so they had an explosion at 1 PM, which we were able to see. The project started with one man, and now is a large family run enterprise.

They had a large museum, including some tables where Native Americans sold their wares. The girls bought a necklace and some bracelets, including from a very friendly Indian.


Mt. Rushmore was a bit of a disappointment after Crazy Horse, as Crazy Horse is so much larger. We were able to see that Mt.Rushmore was in many ways unfinished. They ran out of money, and the sculptor, Borglum, headed for Congress to lobby for more money. Unfortunately, he fell sick and died in Chicago, and never got to DC. Borglum's son was able to wind down the project in an orderly manner, and declared it finished in 1941.

We completed our day by driving home through Custer state park, including tunnels only a few inches wider than the truck! The scenery is so beautiful.

Marianne fixed a good dinner, and we ended the day with a card game, which the adults won!

Mammoth Bones and Pioneer Museum

Richard got up very early to find foggy drizzle, so inside activities were the obvious choice.

The Mammoth dig is what is left of a sinkhole spring into which mammoth's occasionally fell and were unable to get out. It is quite a collection of bones, interestingly all male mammoths. Our guide suggested that was because males were expelled from the herd by the matriarch, and wandered around by themselves. I was thinking of sexist jokes such as the men were so stupid that they fell in and could not get out. These were mostly Columbian mammoths, larger than today's elephants. Marianne is standing in a replica of a hut used by Siberian natives, using mammoth bones for a frame, as they had no wood on the tundra.



We had lunch in the popular Dale's family restaurant, with cute decorations, such as a deer driving a car with a hunter draped across the hood. The food was not great, however.

The Pioneer museum is a hodgepodge of old stuff, ranging from a doctor's office to barbed wire to telephones and musical instruments. Not too different from many local historical museums, but better than most. It is in a multi-story grade school, built out of local sandstone more than 100 years ago.

Wagon Ruts and South Dakota

On our way out of Wheatland, we stopped to admire a flying pig, and talk to the owner. We headed north from Wheatland, and stopped at Gurnsey to see the wagon ruts. These are the actual ruts left by the wagon trains on the Oregon trail, cut into the rock. An amazing testimony to the pioneers.

Ariana took about 100 photos, some of which are included here.


We went onwards to South Dakota. We stopped at the Wyoming and South Dakota state line to take pictures. This is the girls' first trip to South Dakota.

We proceeded to Wind Cave National Park, and set up the camper. Richard, Erica, and Ari went to town to do a little shopping. By the time we finished, it started to rain. Marianne had warm soup and spagetti for us, nice on a cold rainy day. It rained pretty hard, lots of storm watches on the radio.

Given that tomorrow may not be a sunny day, we may head for the Mammoth dig on Wednesday, leaving Mt. Rushmore and the pool for a nicer day.

Saying goodbye, and hitting the road.

In the morning, we said goodbye to Art, Linda, Sam, etc. Ari spent some time saying goodbye to Sam and Noah and some of the other people her age.

As it was Memorial Day, we saw lots of flags, including many at half mast. Our contribution was putting a flag on our truck.

We got on the road around 9:15 AM, and headed for Walden. After dumping and adding some water, we continued on to Laramie, where we bought gas, food, and some things for the cats.

We continued on to Wheatland. It was a pretty drive through a nice valley. By the time we got to Wheatland, we were all tired. We wandered around, trying to interpret directions, and ultimately found the town park, which had free RV spots. Marianne wanted something a bit nicer, so we headed for the only commercial RV park, the Mountainview. It was not bad, only $25 a night with full hookups. We all took showers.

Richard noticed that screws were pulling out of one of the cabinets, and was trying to figure out what to do. Coincidentally, he spoke Marty in the next campsite, who was working on his old RV. He allowed that he had a full woodshop in his camper, and offered to loan Richard some tools. Richard dashed off to the hardware store, where he bought dowels, and then drilled out the screw holes, glued in the doweling, etc. A successful repair, thanks to a little help.