Summer 2005 Cheyenne and Beyond

The Arch at 75mph	An mostly wood bicycle- Click on next picture to read the description	Tale of the bicycle - please read	This is what a Cadillac looked like 100 years ago in 1905
Entrance to the Kool Aid exhibit- it was great	Willa Cather's childhood home	The big round barn and it is big	Interior of barn - no pegs or nails in the big beams

Day 24 - Wednesday, August 03, 2005, Hastings, NE to DesMoines, IA 323 miles driven

One thing we have noticed that on the trip so far has been that we have not seen many Italian Restaurants in Nebraska. The phone books list Pizza Hut in the Italian section so for an Italian style dinner you have to go to Applebees or Red Lobster and order from the Pasta section of the menu. Of course the towns we stayed in didn't always have the above chain restaurants. Now on to today's activities.

Our plan for today was to get to Lincoln, NE and visit the state capitol. After that it would be a long day on the road to arrive in Pella, IA in the late afternoon. We arrived in Lincoln and drove straight to the capitol building. Amazingly there was a parking spot right in front of it. Had the legislature been in session I doubt if that would have happened. We arrived on to the second floor just in time to join a tour which was about to start. We were informed that the capitol was built in a ten year period and completed in 1932 at under 10 million. The guide quoted the number down to the pennies but I can't remember. The center of the building is about 400 feet tall with a statue called the "Sower" on top of the dome. The building is made of sandstone on the exterior and marble on the interior. We both thought that the interior of the building was rather dark. Nebraska is the only state government that is organized around a single legislature. In the 1930's the "Senate" was voted out of existence to be replaced by a single legislature. The Senate chamber thus is no longer used except for special functions and is not viewable by visitors. In addition we learned that the legislative positions in Nebraska are not career moves. The jobs are part time with the legislature in session for 60 days on even numbered years and 90 days on odd numbered years. During the odd numbered year, 30 days of the session are devoted to the budget which is set for two years. The salary of the legislature member is $12,000 per year and they can not vote themselves a raise. Any raise has to be approved by the voters. This should be used nationally. We looked into the legislative chamber and passed down the hall to the ornate Nebraska Supreme Court room. Supreme court justices are appointed by the governor for an initial term of 2 years. After the 2 years the judge thus nominated has to be approved or disapproved by the voters. There is no-one running against the judge. Just yes or no. If the vote is yes then the judge holds that position for 6 years and then has to go thru the ballot system to continue. An interesting system which probably works well in a low population state like Nebraska.  After the tour of the second floor we were done with the tour and took the elevators to the 14th floor to get out on the outside observation platforms to look over the city and beyond. Lunch was served in the capitol cafeteria and we enjoyed a delicious soup and split sandwich for less than $10.00 in total.

From Lincoln we headed towards Iowa. It was time to escape from the flat land to something else. We passed through Omaha without stopping and crossed into Iowa at Council Bluffs where we visited the Western Historic Trails Center which was developed by the National Park Service and now does double duty as a Iowa welcome center. It has excellent displays dealing with the pioneer overland trails. While mom watched the video in the theater in air conditioned comfort I walked the  one half mile trail down to the bank of the Missouri River in the 90+ heat. She probably made the better choice. As they say only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun. I must have been very British.

We continued down I-80 heading east when mom started to read guide book about Iowa. She read out loud about a Danish Windmill that was in the town of Elk Horn. As she finished reading the sentence I passed the sigh that said Elk Horn this exit 9 miles. I knew that if we made this stop Pella would not be on the docket for tonight and after showing some initial unjustified annoyance I realized that mom was thinking of me not herself. She knows that mills are my thing not hers. Off we went to see the Danish Mill in Elk Horn. The windmill was the brainchild of a second generation immigrant from Denmark who had noted that the windmills in Denmark were deteriorating. He set out to organize an effort to secure a windmill and have it shipped to the US. They were able to secure a 1848 original at a dismantled and shipped cost of $33,000. The carpenter in charge of the dismantling also built a scale model of the mill timbers and mechanics and keyed all the pieces on the model to match the full scale pieces. This model was the only blueprint for the re-assembly. When it arrived the material was spread out and the comments were that there was nothing rotten left in Denmark. It was all in Elk Horn. All the assembly was done by volunteers. God bless volunteers. The mill is an amazing piece of machinery. Inside the mill you were on your own. You could walk all the way up to the top and look at all the moving parts to see how it goes together. The windshaft - the shaft that is connected to the 60+ foot sails (propeller like appendages) is at least 20 inches in diameter. The vertical shaft is between 14 and 16 inches square. Massive is the word. The windshaft gear was between 7 feet to 8 feet in diameter. It made our 6 foot Millbrook wheel look like an infant. The main drive gear which transfers power to the millstone shaft was at least 10 feet in diameter. Having some experience with our waterwheel mill project in Millbrook Village i was able to relate our design to the windmill and understand the concept.

After this detour we decided that we would not go on to Pella today. We would stop in Des Moines and take a state capitol tour before continuing to Pella. One thing I can say about Iowa. From what we saw between Council Bluffs and Des Moines in a distance of about 130 miles, Iowa is much more pleasing to the eye. The farms were beautiful in the rolling hill landscape.  

Nebraska State Capitol	Main floor of Nebraska Capitol	Mosaic Tile and Marble Floor in center of Capitol	Doors to the defunct Nebraska Senate
The Nebraska Ornate Supreme Court Room	200 years ago Lewis and Clark passed here on the Missouri River	Re-assembled 1848 Danish Windmill in Elk Horn, IA	The business end of the mill in Elk Horn, IA

Day 25 - Thursday, August 04, 2005,  Des Moines IA to Pella IA,  66 miles driven

We started the day with a visit to the Iowa State Capitol and a tour of the building. The capitol building from the outside sports a center gold dome with four smaller domes in the corners of the building. All the entrance doors save one are blocked to visitors who have to go thru a metal detector to get in. For us this was a first. However you go with the flow and obey the regulations. The capitols in Cheyenne and Lincoln did not have the metal detectors and the guide later explained that the legislators had requested the airport like security. We found the building to be very impressive and beautiful with brilliant colors and stenciling on the walls. The building is in the process of a $65 million refurbishment and some areas were blocked off to visitors. Some of the art work was covered for protection from the construction dust. On the main floor was a scale model display of the battle ship Iowa. We learned that the Iowa is the only battleship with a bathtub and a passenger elevator. FDR spent a lot of time on the ship and had these items installed for his comfort. Also the Iowa was the initial ship selected for the acceptance of the Japanese surrender but since Truman was now president he had insisted that the Missouri be used instead. There were a group of Japanese exchange students on the tour and the guide was afraid that she would offend the group. No one probably understood her or the interpreter with the group omitted that part. We visited the legislative chambers, walked halfway up to the dome gallery and then visited the governors office. We also toured the capitol library which in our opinion was the most impressive room in the building with all the spiral staircases leading to the four floored stacks. The guide explained that at one time all the clocks were powered by pneumatic air with copper tubing through out the building. The clocks were controlled by the grandfather clock in the governor's office. As leaks develop in the tubing, the offending clock is electrified.  Like yesterday we had lunch at the capitol cafeteria and both agreed that the food in Lincoln was better. The guide also mentioned that in the refurbishment of the governors office, a dumbwaiter had been found covered up in one of the walls with writing on it - whiskey run. Another item was that schools visiting the capitol do not like to let their students go into the legislative galleries as they face the computer screens of the legislators and in some instances witness the legislator playing solitaire or other games during the session.

Arriving in Pella we secured lodging at Country Inns and headed downtown to the Dutch Village of Pella. Pella in Dutch is supposed to mean refuge so the town is known as the Town of Refuge. Many Dutch have settled in the area and the downtown reflects that flavor. The visitors center in town is in the shape of a windmill. There is a Klockenspiel Clock which strikes every 15 minutes and on odd number hours 11:00 am thru 5:00 pm has figurines which perform in a window facing the street and opposing courtyard. We witnessed the 3:00 Pm striking. There is also a operating windmill which is open for touring. The windmill is only 4 years old and is run by the Pella Historic association. The association was able to raise $3.0 million for the project. Initially the design and construction of the mill was going to go to a California architect but a local on a visit to Holland had been pointed to a Dutch firm that still builds windmills in Holland. For $800 k the Dutch firm built the mill in Holland, disassembled it, shipped it and re-assembled it in Pella. I guess they went to the horses mouth for the answers. We took a tour of the mill and what a mill it is. It is massive with its large sails and interior gearing. It was much bigger that the mill in Elk Horn. The miller explained that the miller has to climb the latticed sails to adjust the wind bearing surface of the sail. No thanks on that one for me. The mill also had a miniature village display which was very detailed and impressive. As it was near the end of the day we didn't have enough time to visit the boyhood home of Wyatt Earp which is also a part of the Historical Society tour. Our tickets were extended into tomorrow to permit us time to visit this as well as the Pella Opera house.

Iowa Capitol	Iowa's First Ladies as dolls	Inside the Library at Iowa Capitol	Spiral Staircase in Capitol Library
The dome interior - the flag is suspended not painted	Klockenspiel - Pella, Iowa	Pella Windmill	Miniature Village - Pella Historical Society

Day 26- Friday, August 05, 2005,Pella, IA to Amana, IA, 130 miles driven

We revisited the Pella Historic Village to complete the tour. Among the houses and buildings are a Dutch church, a wooden shoe manufacturing shop, a Dutch heritage museum and also Wyatt Earp's boyhood home. The Earp's didn't live in Pella too long and moved on to California with a wagon train. At the windmill I was treated to witness the enlarging of the sails on the blades of the mill. The miller  had to climb up the lattice to spread the canvas on the blades. If I hadn't seen it I wouldn't have believed it. Prior to leaving Pella we visited the museum of the Pella Window Corporation which came out of a company called the Rollascreen Corp. It started out in a garage in Pella in the 1920's and has now grown into one of the largest window corporations. During the war it's sole customer for windows was the government. The company supplied in excess of 40,000 windows for the Oak Ridge Atomic facility in Tennessee but never knew where they were going as the waybill address for shipment didn't exist.

From Pella we moved on to the Amana colonies. During the 1840's a religious group split from the Lutheran church and as a result was subject to persecution. They moved to New York state and eventually to Iowa to establish a communal society which lasted until 1932. At that time the members voted to separate the religious aspects of the community from the business end and establish private property rights. The Amana colonies were a grouping of villages - Amana, High Amana, Middle Amana, West Amana, East Amana, South Amana, Homestead and others. The business end of the organization manufactured refrigeration and heating appliances. Who hasn't heard of an Amana refrigerator? At the present time Maytag owns the Amana Corporation and has a sizeable plant in Middle Amana. With the break-up of the communal way of life the towns have now turned to tourism. We spent time in Amana which is filled with little shops of all descriptions. We arrived at the Furniture Store and factory where you are supposed to be able to see furniture made. we got there around 2:30 Pm and found that in the summer the workers don't work Friday afternoons. The same was true at the woolen mills. We walked around town and visited a group of shops before heading to South Amana to the Smokehouse restaurant. A fellow tourist said that it had been a good place for German food a few years ago. After arriving at the restaurant we found out that the special for the evening was "Greek Pasta with Chicken". The menu didn't have any "schnitzel" or "wurst" on it. I guess they changed their menu theme. Back we went to Amana where we enjoyed a "schnitzel" dinner. Tomorrow we will return to Amana to visit the museum for a better understanding of the community. Frankly we feel that we didn't learn anything today that we couldn't have or didn't read out of a guide book.

The miller climbing the lattice blades	The sails fully extended - there was no wind today	Wyatt Earps childhood home	Wooden shoe shaping bench	Barn museum in South Amana

Day 27 - Saturday, August 06, 2005, Amana, IA to Davenport, IA  389 miles driven

Today we set off from Amana to head north to the Village of Spillville. IA to visit the Bily Clocks museum. Along the way we stopped at the Little Brown Church outside of Nashua, Ia. This is the little church that inspired the song "The Little Brown Church in the Vale". Wouldn't you know it, there was a wedding in progress as we arrived. Looking thru the window I could see that there were very few in the church. Once the doors opened we could see that the only people inside were the woman minister, the photographer, the loving couple and about 5 kids which obviously belonged to the married couple. It was strange to see the photographer writing out an invoice and the groom paying the photographer in church. We talked to the minister and she explained that there had been over 72,000 weddings in the church since its building in 1855. They hold a wedding re-union of people married in the church every August and tomorrow was going to be the day of the mass renewal of vows. We were welcomed to stay but declined. As we were leaving, another group of victims arrived for their vows. This however was a much bigger group with bridesmaids and all that stuff.

Before arriving in Spillville we spotted a small brick church at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. It was the St. Clement RC Church built in 1856. To my amazement we found the doors to be open and the air conditioning system to be turned on. Mom found out later that the church had originally been kept locked but they had had a lot of vandalism. Then they decided to keep it unlocked and they have never  had any trouble since. At Spillville we went directly to the Bily Clock Museum. It is doubly famous. In 1893, Antonin Dvorak, the composer, spent a summer in Spillville in the rooms above the clock museum and put the finishing touches on the "New World Symphony". During his stay at Spillville he had played the organ in church. We wondered about the two Catholic churches so close together and mom found out that the St. Clement church had been built by the German settlers before the influx of Bohemians. The Germans and Bohemians did not get along in the beginning and the Bohemians built the bigger St. Wenceslaz church in Spillville. Now the St. Clement church is only used three times or so a year.

The Bily Clock museum is a collection of all the clocks and carvings of Frank and Joseph Bily. They made their living as farmers and carpenters but spent the winter months and evenings carving and making clocks. They only had a fifth grade education but must have been well read based upon all the subjects that they carved. One of their clocks - about 7 foot tall is referred to as the million dollar clock as Henry Ford had offered that much for it for his Greenfield Village. The brothers turned it down with the statement  "Money doesn't mean anything to Mr. Ford and it doesn't mean anything to me." Upon the death of the unmarried brothers, they left the entire collection, which is extensive, to the town with the stipulation that the collection is not to be broken up. The mechanical workings as well as the carvings are excellent. For the blacksmith clock, one of the figures had a wooden hat which was carved out of a piece of butternut. It was slightly thicker than 1/8 of an inch but had all the detail carved into it to make it look like a woven straw hat. Amazing work. It was a long drive to get there but we agree with the "Gem" rating of AAA.

From Spillville we headed to Dubuque for the evening. Along the way we stopped at Guttenberg on the Mississippi to see Lock and Dam #10 in operation. There were no barges going thru but we did see the locks open up for a group of pleasure craft. The farm country in Iowa is among the prettiest we have seen. The tall corn with all the barns and silos make for a pretty sight in the rolling hilly country side. At Dubuque we got a surprise - lots of motels and no rooms. There were bikers all over the place so Sturgis is even putting pressure this far on the weekend before the motorcycle rally begins. We secured rooms in Davenport which is 70 miles directly south  of Dubuque on I-80. It is  80 miles from where we started out in the morning but we took the long way - 389 miles.

The Little Brown Church in the Vale	This room has heard "I do" 72,000 times.	The bride wore a tattoo or two	St. Clement RC church - circa 1856	Interior of St. Clement Church
Clock carvings	The million dollar clock	Mississippi at Guttenberg, IA	Coming out of Lock #10 at Guttenberg	Iowa's spectacular farmland.

Day 28 - Sunday, August 07, 2005, Davenport, IA to Joliet, IL,  230 miles driven

We first visited the riverfront in Davenport. There we found a river observation tower as well as a riverboat casino that only moves up and down with the level in the river.  We inserted $1.00 into a penny machine and soon thereafter collected $6.00 from the machine. We moved to another machine but wound up loosing a buck. so our net for the morning was $4.00. Enough to buy soft drinks for a few days at Wall-Mart. We then slowly drove up to Clinton, IA to cross over to Fulton, IL which has installed a Dutch windmill in 2000 and is using that as a tourist draw. We had a bunch of time to kill until 1:00 PM when the mill opened up and spent some of the excess hour at a Kohl's doing some shopping.

I was able to crawl all over this windmill along with a few other folks. Getting into the machinery  requires climbing some steep and narrow stairs. We went all the way up into the cupola and were able to poke our heads from behind the windshaft directly behind the sails. It is as high as you can get in a windmill. The mill is similar to the one in Pella, IA but this one seems to have more room in the machinery section and better photographs are the result. This wound up to be a two hour stop. Mom found out a lot of facts from the miller who was giving an interpretative talk while I was crawling in the machine. All the main timbers of the mill frame are from African Bilinga wood. Some of these beams looked like they were 14 x 14 and at least 20 feet in length. The miller explained that all the beams in this mill came from one and one half bilinga trees. These trees grow up to 200 feet tall before branching out so there are a lot of board feet in these trunks. The sails are also from bilinga as they are rot resistant and insect resistant. These beams make up the base which by itself weighs 55 tons.  The cap weighs 25 tons which includes the windshaft, sails, brakewheel and the brake. It is a work of art.

The interpretative miller explained that the Dutch used the windmill set up as a signaling device from mill to mill. Thus deaths, births, need for help could be signaled by the positioning of the sails etc. During the Nazi occupation, the millers would signal troop movements using this methodology. Many of the Dutch mills also had many false floors which provided the miller with places to hide his family and others during the occupation.

Fulton is also the birthplace of Ronald Regan's parents both born in 1883 and married in Fulton in 1904. From Fulton we drove to Joliet, IL for the evening. Tomorrow we start to clip off some bigger mileage for home.

River observation deck at Davenport, IA	Mississippi River at Davenport, IA	Looking down the observation deck walkway at Davenport, IA	Small tow moving past windmill at Fulton, IA - the river is down
Dutch windmill at Fulton, IL	Climbing the sail to enlarge wing area	Fulton windmill - in the belly of the beast	Fulton windmill looking down the shaft of the sail from the cap window.

Day 29 - Monday, August 08, 2005,  Joliet, IL to Port Clinton, OH, 358 miles driven

Today was to be primarily a driving day but we were west of Chicago and it was Monday. From my working days with BASF in the Joliet area I had no desire to get into rush hour towards Chicago. We dallied about and left the motel around 9:30 in the morning. Traffic was still busy and there was a stretch of construction on the road but we made it through onto the Indiana Toll Road I-80 in good order. Our lone stop for the day was going to be the Campus of Notre Dame University. At a rest stop we picked up a brochure which mentioned a visitors center with a Notre Dame History video. We thought this was on the campus but found out it was part of the Northern Indiana History Center in the middle of South Bend. There was no golden dome to be seen. Indiana must have a union contract with Minnesota. It was Monday and the museum was closed. The maintenance man at the center gave us pointers on how to get to the campus without experiencing the traffic jams we had seen on the way in. It worked and within a few minutes we were parked in the visitors lot. After receiving a campus map we headed off to the golden dome in the distance. They are obviously working on the dome as there is scaffolding all around it. The campus has an old and new character to it. First we walked through the section with all the modern contemporary buildings and then we arrived in the area of the pre 1900 buildings. We liked the old part better.

We walked into the Golden Dome building which is the main administration building as well as the admissions office. The entire first floor is decorated with paintings whose subject is Christopher Columbus. Later in the church the guide explained that the painter of these had also done many of the religious paintings in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart next door to the admin building. The artist had been on loan from the Vatican for a year but had spent 10 years decorating the walls of Notre Dame. The Basilica of the Sacred Heart is a beautiful church. The guide in the basilica was full of information regarding the campus and advised us that the basilica would be closed at 3:00 pm for a funeral service for one of the priests at College of Holy Cross next to Notre Dame. Anyone who has seen the movie Rudy will remember that Rudy went to Holy Cross to get his grades up for admission to Notre Dame. The guide said that the movie was mainly shot on the ND campus Law School. She did say that after that movie the applications to Holy Cross increased and that it is a way to help admission to ND. ND has a student body of only 8000 plus about 2500 graduate students. The tuition for undergraduate with room and board for this year is around $37k. We mentioned that one of our sons had gone to Pitt and she mentioned that Pitt is a bad word on campus right now as ND opens the football season against Pitt. She also suggested that we go see the Grotto which is very busy on football weekends and also at exam time. The grotto is a place for meditation and prayer where candles are lit by the petitioners. We  asked about the scaffolding at the main building and were advised that they are re-gilding the dome. Last year at graduation time, many seniors had complained that they didn't spend all that money for tuition and have their picture taken in front of the golden dome in scaffolding. Some of the scaffolding then had been taken down for graduation and re-installed later.  After a lunch at the campus "Subway" we headed back to the turnpike and ended our day with a dinner at the "Mon Ami" restaurant on Catawba Island which is one of the Lake Erie Islands around Put-In Bay. We visited this restaurant on our cross country trip in 2002 and it was just as nice as ever.

Spire of Basilica of the Sacred Heart	The Golden Dome at Notre Dame	Under the golden dome	Interior of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart	The Grotto

Day 30 - Tuesday  August 09, 2005,  Port Clinton, OH to High Bridge, NJ  526 miles driven

Today's objective in my mind was to get home with a slight detour to Penn State to pick up some ice cream for Gregg. Gregg is very fond of the ice cream that is sold at the Creamery on Penn State campus. It is made at the Penn State Dairy Farms. It must be good as this is where Ben and Jerry's is reported to have gotten their start. After experiencing some construction delays on the highways leading to Penn State and fighting with the usual State College downtown traffic we arrived at the Creamery in good order. We got the best parking space we have ever gotten right across the street and thought things were going our way. Arriving at the Creamery was a sign in the window - "We are temporarily out of Dry Ice". The Creamery will pack your ice cream in sufficient dry ice to allow you to get it home in the time that you specify. However with no dry ice - no ice cream would last the 4 hours that it takes us to get home. We each had a fresh ice cream cone and continued on our way home. We lost about an hour and a half in this process. When we pulled in the driveway I had driven a total of 6563 miles since our July 11 departure. After we arrived at home mom questioned my seeming rush to get home. I had to explain that ever since Des Moines the transmission had been acting a little strange when driving thru heavily congested areas - especially if it was hot. I just wanted to get the car home without worrying her to any great extent. One worry wart is enough for the two of us.

 

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