Pilgrimage to Red Cloud

We started our day on Thursday at the Hastings Museum of Natural and Cultural History, a real gem of all aspects of Nebraska history. Of special interest to me was the Kool-Aid exhibit, showing its development in the area, to success, to sale to General Foods. I have fond memories of mountain hikes from Lake Kirkwood, as a youngster, when we always took along Kool-Aid for our lunch-time drinks, and used it to flavor stream and lake water. I am not sure we can drink from those same streams and lakes now.

We had lunch at the nearby O.K. Cafe, as recommended by museum personnel. It was clearly the most popular place in town, and a museum in its own right. Several model trains were running around the edges of the walls, up near the ceiling. The cafe was also full of old time dishes, kitchen implements, dolls, and you name it on display. I had chiles rellenos and Mother had a fried egg sandwich.

Off south to Red Cloud, where Willa Cather grew up, and which inspired many of the characters in her books. We took the "tour" of the Cather home at the time, the bank, which figures in one of her books, and the Opera House. Our guide was a good friend of Mildred Bennett, who wrote the biography I am reading, and who also roped our guide into working with the Willa Cather Historic Site starting way back in 1955 and has been at it ever since. I was glad to know I was reading the "good" biography. And we got lots of extra "inside" stories.

For the most part, the day's weather was much better than on Wednesday, since we were far south of I-80. Only a little wind in Hastings in the morning. But later, as we headed back up north to I-80, the winds really picked up, and we went through a few of those dark patchy areas where you can't see. This was the remnants in Nebraska of the "severe weather" that hit the midwest with tornadoes in Wisconsin and tied up air traffic in Chicago.

We managed to make our way to Kearney and squeaked into the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument before closing. This museum is really an archway all the way over I-80. As you walk through, you experience successive methods of making the journey along the Great Platte River Road, starting with the pioneer's wagon train. A buffalo stampede is quite realistic. At the end you have a window down to cars speeding by on I-80 right below. We spent the night in Kearney, with a good dinner at "Sydney's", which was the motel restaurant.