Iowa - Nebraska - Wyoming

Tuesday we went to the Nebraska state capitol, Lincoln

It is a skyscraper with a dome! Tons of art in this building, so many things to look at, including this "railing" made from Utah onyx

When you look over the railing, these are the mosaics.  There was statuary, painted and carved doors, mosaics inside the dome, mosaics below the dome outside, murals, all kinds of artwork and then tons and tons of inscriptions and quotes.  SO much art!

Outside on the west side was this statue of Lincoln, by the same sculptor as the memorial in D.C.

Quirky item to note: the old-fashioned towel dispensers in the bathrooms.  I had to teach S how to use them and J said he stared at it for a bit before figuring it out.

We headed to the Gerald Ford birthplace next, in Omaha.  He was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., his mom left and later divorce his abusive dad. His stepdad adopted him and he became a different Jr.  This birthplace was where his paternal grandparents' house had stood.

We ended up driving back into Iowa for a bit

We saw this bridge, it's the 24th street bridge, and it has CRAZY art/architecture on it

All I could think was Edward Scissorhands

Back into Nebraska

We headed to this visitor center to learn about Lewis and Clark

And to walk across this bridge

When you get a little past the middle (from the Nebraska side) you can stand on either side of the stateline

We headed to the Mormon Trail Center and that is when I realized that all these markers are supposed to be oversized map pins and they are at every tourist location, even at the bridge. I just wasn't paying attention to them.

We got caught in a major rainstorm while inside, so this was my picture of the Winter Quarters Temple from inside the Mormon Trail Center.  The temple, and a pioneer cemetery, are just across the street from the Mormon Trail Center. 

Wednesday we headed to Homestead National Monument

These are all the state shapes, with a square inside them representing the amount of land that was homesteaded in that state

I rediscovered that I have homesteaders on both sides of my family, two and three generations back. They have computers that you can look up the records. If there is a patent registered on the BLM site, that means your ancestor homesteaded successfully.  I was kind of verklempt to find records for my maternal great-grandpa. I knew that side had settled in Utah, I didn't know if they qualified for "homesteaders".

We headed to Hebron, Nebraska next to see the world's largest porch swing.  Turns out, it's not giant sized, just that it can fit two dozen people on it at once.

Then on to Red Cloud, Nebraska to see the childhood home of Willa Cather. There is SO much Cather stuff there and you can tour the town, stay overnight in a bed and breakfast that was another Cather home, or just visit the museum.

On our drive Thursday we got caught in this squall.  It was kind of sketchy driving for a good 10 minutes. Notice the RV in front of us has slowed down and is driving on the shoulder, as were we, since it was a two-lane highway!

That evening, we made it to Chimney Rock.  This is about as close as you can get

Because there are rattlesnakes in the area and no roads up to the rock

You can get a better look at it from inside the visitor center

Including through a telescope, took me 4 tries but I finally got this photo!

FYI, the pioneers and other settlers called it Chimney Rock, but the Native Americans called it something else.... 

Friday we went to Scott's Bluff

If you go up to the top, you can see Chimney Rock in the distance

You can hike up and down, or take a shuttle, or drive your own car.  We took the shuttle up and a few of us opted to hike back down

Cool tunnel through the bluff on the way

We made a quick stop at the gravesite of Rebecca Winters, a Mormon pioneer who died on the trail and is probably the only one whose grave was marked, because someone etched her name into a metal wagon wheel rim and put it on top of the grave.

There was a Daughters of the American Revolution marker there, because her father fought in the Revolutionary War

We went to Carhenge! We may never make it to Stonehenge, but it was fun to visit Carhenge.

There is more than just Carhenge there, there's a lot of other car "art" too

Just an FYI, the builder of Carhenge spent almost a decade in England and created it exactly at the same angles to the sun as Stonehenge. They are almost, but not quite, at the same latitude too.

Stonehenge on the left, Carhenge on the right:

Saturday we went to Agate Fossil Beds.  There are two short trails you can hike out there, plus a small visitor center.  Agate was established before Dinosaur National Monument and has a ton of fossils

We entered Wyoming after that

I guess the Wyoming guy is a miner?

It was getting dark when we made it to Ayres Natural Bridge Park.

It is a very thick natural bridge that we hiked up on top of 

Today we attended church at the Douglas Ward, Casper Wyoming Stake. They had a funky steeple with colored glass in it and a handcart out front.

Douglas is the "Jackalope City"

Lots of jackalopes to be seen--they are jack rabbit/antelope hybrids, dreamed up by a taxidermist in the 1930s

We headed next to the Oregon Trail Ruts

They can be up to 5 feet deep in places, the pictures do not do it justice how dramatic these wagon ruts are

Last stop of the day was Fort Laramie National Historic Site

We really felt like we were on the prairie out here, lots and lots of preserved buildings and ruins, it was quite impressive.

We've almost seen most of Wyoming, we haven't been to the northwest corner (Tetons/Yellowstone) yet, but we've seen almost every other corner especially since the Google map lady keeps sending us down dirt road shortcuts!