August 11, 2025
It has been quite a while since we traveled out of state, and we are finally on the road again. We didn't leave until early August because our itinerary revolves around two nights in a camper cabin in Isle Royale National Park, located on Lake Superior.
Our first major stop was a visit to the Oklahoma State Capitol, our twelfth state capitol tour. The weather was in the high 90s for the first two days, so we didn't try to camp.
Will Rogers
Sequoyah
The next location on my list was the "Keeper of the Plains" sculpture overlooking the Arkansas River in Wichita, Kansas. We were pleased to hear native American flute music playing quietly through speakers at the sculpture. Nice displays about aspects of indigenous culture, too.
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The next cool place was not expected, except we wanted to route ourselves through Minneapolis, Kansas (I was born in Minneapolis, MN). We explored nearby Rock City, the largest concentration of huge sandstone concretions in the world. An added bonus was the George Washington Carver exhibit in the local county museum. Mr. Carver lived in Minneapolis for a while as a young man.
We dawdled along the Lincoln Highway in Nebraska and visited another state Capitol in Lincoln.
The Nebraska State Capitol felt like a church.
The story goes that the Capitol in Baton Rouge, LA, was made taller than this one at the insistence of Governor Huey Long.
a portion of orginal concrete of the Lincoln Highway (U.S. Highway 30)
On September 1, 1928, Boy Scouts erected 3,000 of these markers along the entire length of the
Lincoln Highway.
A feature along the Lincoln Highway in Nebraska. The owner drove by, saw us, then pulled over
to tell us the history of the location and his plans to restore the building. It has been here since 1932.
There is a very large cemetery in Lincoln, NE, and we saw the Nebraska State Holocaust Memorial there.
We found geocaches in 14 Iowa counties, the 45th state we have completed. Some of the cool things we encountered are . . .
Claims to be the world's largest bull in Audubon, Iowa
Templeton Rye Distillery
retrieving a geocache
AND . . . another State Capitol tour - Des Moines, Iowa
Iowa is full of rolling, hilly farmland (so different from the FLAT farmland in eastern Illinois where I grew up). So many shades of green, terraced fields with contour plantings. This rest stop along the interstate caught my attention . . .
Depth of topsoil in 1850 was 14 inches
In 2000, it was only 5.5 inches
This summarizes Week 1 of this adventure. More to come!
