Friday - Day 2

The Lewis & Clark museum, in Nebraska City, opened at 9AM. Kathy & I walked in the door at 9:05. We would recommend it to anyone, especially to families. We spent a busy 1.5 hours there. With kids you would need to schedule at least 4 hours.

The drive to the Stuhr get from Nebraska City to I80, at Lincoln. It appears to be a relatively new concrete 4 lane divided highway. With the guys who specified the acceptance criteria, or the inspectors who signed off on the Contractor’s work should be horse whipped. Driving on it must be similar to what it was like to drive on old washboard roads. The roadbed consisted of trees laying perpendicular to the road. I think it the “roughness” was caused because of concrete curling. Almost the entire stretch needs to be treated with micro grinding to smooth it out. I80 was OK except for an occasional rough patch.

The Stuhr Museum was also good. We were there about 2 hours and left. We toured 2 of the air conditioned buildings and walked around just a small portion of the exterior grounds. Temperature was 88 when we left and stayed at 88  until after 5PM. This would be a great place to go before Labor Day. The exterior exhibits close down after Labor Day.

We then drove on to North Platte, Nebraska where we are spending the night at the Holiday RV Park. It isn’t as nice as Victorian Acres but it does have a pool that Kathy took advantage of.

We have driven 559 miles since we left Thursday morning. In yesterday’s post I mentioned that I  thought my fuel mile figures were inaccurate because I didn’t think I had the tank completely full during yesterday’s last fill-up. I was correct. When I filled up today the overall average dropped from 12.4 mpg to 11.2 mpg. The speed limit on I80 in Nebraska is 75 mph. I kept my speeds at about 66 mph on all the interstates we have travelled since leaving.  I think todays hot temps may have knocked at least a tenth off our fuel economy, maybe more. The other thing is that we are climbing. I think Centertown is around elevation 660. Nebraska City is about elevation 1,000. North Platte is around elevation 2,800.

Lewis and Clark Museum

 A keel boat, just like the ones we used to see while watching Davy Crockett & Daniel Boone on TV.

 These oars would require a real man to pull on them for very long.

 The building is beautiful.

I

Above the entry.

 I had never heard that Lewis & Clark had an air gun. They hooked an external pump up to the stock and pumped air into the stock. The volume was large enough that they could shoot it several times before pumping in more air. No information on what they used it for.

 This was in the lower level. I bet Lydia & Nolan could play in the prairie dog burrow for quite a long time.

Taking a hike on the path down to the river overlook.

Checking out the Missouri River.

Several Indian tribes in the area built these earth sheltered "lodges".

It was much larger on the inside than I expected.

The Stuhr Museum main building. It has a moat around it.

Stairways to upper level exhibits.

 Kathy said my Mom has something very similar to the one below. (Whatever it is?)

 God is good, may He bless you and yours.