Then came Autumn

Jennifer, a close friend of Anne's got married in Omaha, Nebraska in early September. Elaine & I (along with Anne, of course) attended the festivities. While there, we had free time to wander about the downtown part of Omaha. A little bit about Omaha: It is the nation's 40th largest city, with a population of about 440,000; if the suburbs are included, it comes to over 800,000. Are you surprised at that?



I don't know who the artist is, but in downtown Omaha, there are many street level sculptures, which we leave for you to critique.









Omaha is on the eastern border of the state of Nebraska. The Missouri River flows right by downtown and forms this border with Iowa. Cargill Corporation and others made a park out of one of the ox-bow lakes that the Missouri River has left due to its many channel changes over the years. A paved path allows you to take a leisurely stroll and enjoy the lake and the waterbirds.





Elaine pulled out all stops and spent most of the time working during the fall. She also continued her singing in the Sweet Adelines chorus and gave 3 concerts in October. Elaine took on the role of President of the American Legion Auxiliary, while I was elected Commander of the local American Legion Post. (for overseas friends, the American Legion is America’s largest veterans organization). I have been a member for about 10 years and have served on the Color Guard for most of that time. The Color Guard attends funerals of veterans whose family wishes the military honors performed. We also open a lot of local conventions. I also am continuing with my piano lessons, which started up again in September. While our social life is active, much of our going out involves attending sports events at the University from which I retired from in December 2007. Autumn is the busiest of the seasons, with football (gridiron for overseas friends), women’s volleyball and men’s & women’s basketball.

This didn’t leave a lot of room for travels. However, Elaine took a weekend out for a quilting retreat. She began her hobby of quilting two years ago and has created some fine items.





Let's play football

I took a weekend out to attend the NCAA Division II playoffs for our football team. UNK had a great season and I thought that it would be neat to see this game. This occurred in mid November. The game was against the University of Minnesota at Duluth. Since this team was ranked higher than ours, the game site was Duluth, Minnesota.
Duluth is located on Lake Superior way up in northern Minnesota. You might say, Don what’s wrong with you? Duluth in November, isn’t that a bit cold up there then? After checking the forecast, which was for sunny weather in the 50s, almost unheard of up there in November. As was scheduled to work four 12-hour night shifts in a row over that weekend, she hardly knew that I was gone. So, off to Duluth on a 13-hour bus trip with 40 other. Made it to St. Paul, Minnesota on Friday night (game at noon on Saturday). Met lots of the team member’s parents on the bus and later at the game. Also met the dance team and the University mascot, Louie the Loper. A Loper is a shortening of the word antelope.





The day was as glorious as forecast, although coats and gloves helped ward off the chill that comes off of Lake Superior.
The stadium was first class, and we were there plenty early to enjoy the pre-game warm up.





Loper fans sat in the guest bleachers, conveniently located so that the sun does not shine on it, while the home team enjoyed the warm sunny day.





Game time.



After a short 3.5 minutes of play





The UNK fans cheered loudly, hoping that mental energy could overcome this early gap.



Two more minutes and the score:



Let’s get back in the game



Ouch!





Thought we might end the half only 21 points behind - ouch again.



Half-time gave us a welcome 15 minutes with no scoring. Then came the 3rd quarter of the game.





Ugh!. Double ugh





The game began to turn due to the efforts of our cheering





Oh, did I forget to mention that Minnesota Duluth is the defending national champion? They have the leading rushing player in the nation. UNK (Lopers) has the 2nd leading rusher – however, we were beaten by a fantastic team.
Thirteen hours after the game ended, we arrived back in Kearney at 4 in the morning. A fun trip, even if we did not do very well.

Off to Branson, Missouri.

To celebrate the occasion of Elaine becoming vested in her pension at Good Samaritan Hospital, her employer, we decided to take a week of relaxation in Branson, Missouri. Vesting, for those who may not be familiar with the term, means that your retirement pension is now owned by you. Before vesting, if you leave for any reason, the employer’s contributions are retained and you lose all that money. In the USA, according to law, once you are employed at the same employer for 5 years, all contributions become vested. In Elaine’s case, she has to work 1,000 hours for a year to count for vesting. Although she started at the hospital in 2001, this was the 5th year working the necessary hours.
A little bit about Branson: This is a small town in southern Missouri. The original equivalent of Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry actually got its start in Branson. Due to a dispute amongst a couple of early country singers, they left Branson and started up the Nashville music scene. Branson quietly became a center of country music and family-type entertainment. Several big stars opened their own theaters here and it became a Las Vegas type place, minus the gambling, prostitution, and explicit shows. Some of the big names here have been &/or are: Roy Acuff, Andy Williams, The Osmands, Tony Orlando, etc. Today there are over 100 live entertainment shows and several million people come here each year to see them.
We stayed at the Spinnaker Resort in Branson. Had a comfortable one-bedroom suite with a fully furnished kitchen. The building & grounds are very pretty, with some flowers still in blossom.





The resort had a number of on-site activities, of which we took advantage of. One evening they hosted a BBQ dinner followed by some of the local entertainers. It was like getting a free hour and twenty minute show. Among the entertainers, of whom I never heard of were:
The Duttons, John Tweed & Ralph Kuster, whose shows we later saw. Also, a few very large family singing groups (like 15 children) and other singers entertained us. The main idea is to expose you to acts that you may want to then pay to see, which we did.
Branson is located in the Ozark Mountain region of Missouri. Even in town, the scenery is very mountainous.





A highlight was seeing the Shoji Tabuchi show one evening. He has a very ornate theater in which he has performed for 20 years. Born and raised in Japan, he came to the USA as a young man and became a renown violinist. For some reason, he put over $1,000,000 into the theater restrooms of which he is very proud, don't ask me why.
Ladies restroom





Mens restroom







That's right guys, a pool table in the men's room, just what we all need

Being the Christmas season, his theater and most others are all decorated for the season and all of the shows have a Christmas theme.





By coincidence, one of our sister-in-laws from South Dakota was in Branson leading a tour group that happened to be at the same Shoji show as we were. Small world.
The 12 Irish Tenors show was another show. They were the only show that didn’t allow photos during their performance. A very high energy act. The lobby was suitably decorated in the Christmas theme.





The shows range from the glitzy ones (Tabuchi) to very small one or two person performances in some tiny venues. For example, Ralph Kuster is a Canadian performer who has a very good voice and puts on a good show. His theater has maybe 60 seats, most of them empty, which are regular chairs like you would see in a café. His songs focus on Bing Crosby, Elvis, and Nat King Cole. Every show that we went to made a point of asking all veterans to stand up and be applauded. Ralph takes this honor even further by offering free admission to any veteran. So, Don got in for free. Made the show even more enjoyable, thanks Ralph. As it was the Christmas season, many of his songs and those of the other shows we attended were in a theme of Christmas.



Our final show was that of John Tweed and his daughter Sarah Tweedle (Tweed must be the stage version of his name). He focuses mainly on country-western songs, Christmas songs and Broadway tunes. Sarah sang show tunes and Christmas songs, of course. Both have very strong and pleasant singing voices. Elaine & I even bought some of their CDs.



In recent years, Branson Landing was built. It is an open air shopping mall. Big deal, another mall. However, this time of year it is decked out with Christmas decorations, with a fountain that dances to music at the top of each hour.





Political correctness is thankfully absent in Branson. It is the Christmas season, not the holiday season or the winter festival or anything else. It is pretty hard even in a normal year (which 2009 has not been) for me to get enthused about Christmas, but Branson did the trick. Merry Christmas to all of you and I hope to see many of you in 2010.

Summer of 2009 – 3 months & 4 trips

Trip #1 July – Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Colorado

The road beckoned us this summer, where we entered each of the USA mainland’s 4 time zones. After our trip to Savannah (eastern time zone), in late July, we headed west to Wyoming (mountain t.z.), Idaho, Oregon (Pacific t.z.) and Colorado (drove through Utah also). Of course, we live in the Central time zone.

Our motivation for the trip was another sad task, a long-time friend of Elaine’s passed away in 2008 & a memorial service for Karla was being held in Cove, Oregon – Elaine really wanted to go there to honor Karla’s memory and their friendship. Of course, we added a great number of other stops, which you will hear of within.

Traveling west on Interstate 80, we drove through windy Wyoming, where we saw many windmills that are now common throughout the central part of the USA. Most of Wyoming is an arid, treeless high prairie region, interspersed with some beautiful rugged mountain ranges.



After a day of driving, our tent found a home in Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. The temperature during the day was about 100 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind was fierce. I wondered if the tent would stay up, as I had to rrepound the stakes in a few times when the wind blew them out of the sandy soil. The ranger assured us that the wind would stop around 7:30 PM, which it did. The temperatures dropped to a comfortable 60 degrees by morning.



This area was once a deep canyon of the Green River, maybe 1200 feet in depth. In the 1950’s a dam was constructed for power generation, recreation and water retention. We will later view how these canyons once looked on our return trip via Utah/Colorado on a downstream part of the same river. The area is still quite scenic, with many limestone formations, remnants of the ancient seabed which covered much of the Great Basin area of the USA.







Boise, the capitol of the state of Idaho was our next destination. Elaine’s sister Rose and her husband Merle have lived in Boise for many years. We enjoyed their hospitality for several days. Met many of their friends and went to a minor league baseball game while there.



Rose & Merle’s daughter, Midge, husband Keith and thier wonderful children live nearby. We celebrated their daughter, Tawny’s, 10th birthday with them. Had a lot of fun getting to know them better. Unfortunately, the photo of their entire family was blurred, so only the birthday girl is in this pic.



One day, we traveled to Karla’s memorial service in Oregon. Services were held at a church & the cemetery (which has a glorious view of forest-covered mountains) where Karla rests. After the services, a social time with meal was held at the church, where many friends gave testimonials to the wonderful person she was. I had met Karl once in 1976 and again when she visited us in Kearney a few years ago.







Elaine & Rose got involved in a quilting project after our return from Cove. I barely saw them for the next couple of days, except when they decided to come up for air and have a meal. The sewing machine worked its magic into the wee hours of two nights – I enjoyed talking with Merle, but knew enough to go to bed at a decent time.
Once the quilt was done, we started on our way home. I have wanted to visit Dinosaur National Monument for many years – so that was our next destination. I had promised a good friend of ours that we would stop in Pocatello, Idaho to buy some very special salad dressing at Buddy’s restaurant. Buddy’s is an Italian restaurant that features many great foods. From the outside, it is not very promising looking. However, if in the area, give it a try – you won’t be disappointed. So, I loaded up the car with $200 worth of salad dressing. Needless to say, our friend really likes this particular salad dressing.
Dinosaur National Monument (DNM) sits in a very desolate area on the Utah/Colorado border, where trees are rare, rain is a rarity and fine red dust blows. Actually, just got the last of the red dust cleaned out of our car in November. To make it even more pleasant, daytime temperatures exceeded 100. Having said this, we really enjoyed ourselves. Much of the land of DNM is on both sides of the Green & Yampa Rivers – which are tributaries of the Colorado River. A famous American, John Wesley Powell, brought this area to the attention of the nation when he was among the first to raft down the Green River. It is a raging river in many parts and his trip was all the more outstanding when one learns that he had lost an arm in the Civil War and rafted with only one arm. I think others were with him, but he was the driving force of the exploration.





Found a secluded campsite on the banks of the river. The temps dropped down to 55 during the night. Which meant, it was worth it to rise early and see the sights before the heat of the day became oppressive. Being very remote, the dinosaur fossils lay undiscovered until 1909. Here’s 7 vertebrae and the femur of an Apatasaurus. WE walked a trail that had guides stationed to show you where the fossils were, as they often can be mistaken for a rock – which I guess they are, as mineralized bone.







The next night we camped in DNM at Echo Park. To reach Echo Park, one has to travel down a steep, dirt road, that is one lane in many parts and has heaps of switchback turns to navigate. The ranger informed us that if it rained, the road becomes impassible until 10 hours after the rain stops. As the forecast did not predict rain, we chanced it and made the drive. If you look closely at the photo you can see the road way down at the bottom of the canyon.



A hundred years ago, Basques from northwestern Spain found they could graze their sheep on the poor grasses here. Evidence of their time here is absent except for this mobile home.



In the 1950’s, this area was also proposed as a site for a dam or two, but the outcry was so loud that this area was left pristine, while Flaming Gorge (see above) became Flaming Lake.
Here’s our campsite.



On the drive down to Echo Park we passed sites where Indian petroglyphs were in abundance. See all those dots in the rock? That’s a petroglyph. Nobody can tell you for sure what they meant.





Also explored the Whispering Cave, where one can whisper at one end of the fissure and be clearly heard many feet away. Elaine felt especially strong & is holding up the cave’s opening. The best feature of the cave is that when it is 100 degrees outside, step one foot inside and it is in the 50s.



As you can see from the pic of the campsite, we were at the base of the canyon that has been carved by the Green & Yampa Rivers. Towering over us was the formation known as the Steamboat, a rocky mesa at the junction of both said rivers. See 2 views of the formation.





Elaine & I walked down to the river to cool ourselves off in the waters of the Green River.



While in the water, Elaine motioned to me to look across the river. Where a small herd of what we thought were elk, but were later informed by a expert hunter were mule deer, grazed in the late afternoon. They saw us and one kept watch on us while the others munched. Since they are not hunted in the park, they tolerate humans.



Next morning found us on a hike on the crest of the canyon (1,500 ft higher than our campsite), where we were treated to panoramic views of the area.









After leaving DNM, we spent a few days at a friend’s home in Colorado Springs, Colorado and then returned home for a couple weeks.


Trip #2 August – South Dakota

Our niece, Deb Trefz, has been asking us to come visit for years. Deb & Doug (& 5 children) live in a remote part of South Dakota, where they farm and ranch. I often joke that it is right on the edge of the earth and warn them to be careful not to fall off. In August, we made the decision to finally go to Onaka, South Dakota. Onaka is one of the larger towns in South Dakota (population 30). If you want to find it on a map, you had better be using a map of the state of South Dakota and maybe a magnifying glass.







While with the Trefz’s, we took the short drive to Faulkton to tour the Pickler mansion, a lawyer/legislator from the 1880s.



It was luxurious for the era and for the state, but if you reread the David Davis and Benjamin Harrison slutigrams, you can compare the photos to see what real luxury was in the eastern part of the country.







Enjoyed our time with them, a wonderful family.

Thence on to Fort Pierre, SD for a couple days with Elaine’s sister, Eileen & her husband Bob. I don’t have any pics of Bob & Eileen, but did take some of the area. Fort Pierre is where in 1913 the Verendrye plate was found by local school children. The plate was placed by the French explorer of the same name in 1743. The existence of the plates confirmed the historic claim that the French had traveled so very far west before they lost their colony to the British in 1763. The actual plate itself resides in a museum in the state’s capitol.



Explored the local museum, where relics of early pioneers and the native American Indians are in abundance.







Off to the Fort Pierre cemetery, where, among others one can find the graves of Casey Tibbs – one of America’s most famous rodeo riders.



The other notable personage interred there is Scotty Phillips. Never heard of him? Well, Phillip, SD is named after him. So what you say. Okay, how about this. Scotty is famous because it was through his efforts that the American Bison (buffalo) was saved from extinction. There were others who helped, but he is arguably the key person that kept alive a small herd, which became the base stock of the hundreds of thousands of these majestic beasts that once again roam the American plains, albeit all in privately or government herds. Thanks Scotty, they are awesome animals.



Trip # 3 Kansas

During the waning days of summer, in September, my brother David returned to Nebraska for a visit. Looks a bit like me. Don't ask me if he is my younger brother - he is not. David’s hobby is USA Presidents.



Last year, we went to see Harry Truman’s home and library in Independence, Missouri (see summer of 2008 blog). Truman’s successor was Dwight D. Eisenhower, the commander of Allied forces in Europe during WW II. He was born and raised in rural Kansas. His Presidential museum and library is located in Abiline, where he grew up.
After clearing the souvenir shop, one can view the modest prairie home that the Eisenhowers lived in during Dwight’s time at home before enrolling in the US Military Academy at West Point.





Next to his home is the Presidential Museum, which holds items from his birth all the way to his death. Eisenhower was president in my youth, the first President that I remember. He was elected in 1953 and served two terms, leaving office on January 20, 1961.



In the entry way, each wall is covered with a mural detailing a phase of his life.
Kansas childhood days



His wartime role



His first car, a 1913 electric vehicle. Looks a lot like the proposed Chevrolet Volt doesn't it.



Various Nazi mementos. Eisenhower had a visceral hatred of the Nazis and what they stood for. Films show his open disgust of what he saw at the liberated concentration camps.



When leaving office, Eisenhower warned the US people of the dangers of the military-industrial complex, under which we have operated since WWII. Our country has become the policeman of the world and the defense suppliers continue to prosper, even when peace threatens. I fear that we have and will continue to lose many of our enjoyed freedoms under the regimes of big government and big business.
I salute a great President.



President Eisenhower and his wife Mamie are interred in a chapel on the grounds.







Trip #4 North Platte, Nebraska

While David was visiting, we took a day trip to the small City of North Platte, Nebraska, an hour and a half west of our home. North Platte has several attractions, too much to see in one day. We focused on two.
A visit to the final home of the famous adventurer of the American West, Buffalo Bill Cody was our first stop. Allow several hours for an in depth view, or 30 minutes if you want to run through and see and learn nothing.





Buffalo Bill was born on February 26, 1846 in Iowa. In his pre-teen and teen years he was an ox-team driver, and was an assistant wagon-master by age 13. By 16, he was a miner in a gold rush in Pike’s Peak Colorado. If we had today’s child labor laws, Bill probably would not have done what he did in life.
During the Civil War, he served the Union as a Scout. By 1864, he had joined the Kansas Infantry. During his time in the Army, he drove the stage between Fort Kearney (5 miles from where we live) to Plum Creek (now known as Lexington, NE).



As far as records show, he spent about 1 month in school – which probably helps explain his exceptional creativity and maybe lack of business skills.
It was during 1867 to 1868 when he acquired his moniker “Buffalo Bill”. Quite the shot, he is said to have killed 4,280 buffalo in 8 months (thanks again to Scotty Phillips for keeping these wonderful beasts from Bill’s efforts at extinction). The buffalo meat was used to feed the railway workers who were crossing the plains with the rails at this time. There is no doubt, that another side effect, and perhaps the real reason for the wanton slaughter was to deprive our native American Indians of a major source of food, clothing and shelter.





He served in several capacities during the Indian Wars of the 1870’s, and was almost elected to the Nebraska Legislature in 1872. Sounds like a full life? He was only 26 in 1872.
After fighting the Indians in 1878, he settled in North Platte, buying a small ranch, which eventually totaled 4,000 acres (about 1,3500 hectares).
In 1882 he began the company known as Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show which extensively toured the USA and the world and continued on tour for 34 years. He had some really famous names in his show: Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull are two.





He made loads of money from the show, but lost even more on poorly thought out or executed business ventures. Should have majored in business at my university.
Wild Bill has been honored on a few USA postage stamps (my hobby) and one group is on display at his home.



The home and furnishing, show that he was a prosperous man.









The home is a state park and can be visited for a nominal fee of a daily state park pass ($3.50)

The other site we visited was the Union Pacific Railroad’s Bailey Yard, which is the largest classification yard in the world. A classification yard is where railway cars are connected into trains. We viewed the operations of the yard from the Golden Spike Tower, which provides a great view of the trains being split up car by car and reassembled into completed trains.






Time for the impressive statistics. Every 24 hours, 15,000 rail cars are handled. The diesel engines that run this operation use 14,000,000 gallons (about 4 times this in litres) of fuel every month. Talk about carbon footprint. Of course, 1 gallon of diesel is said to be able to move 1 ton of product about 435 miles. Wish my car got mileage like that. They have a repair shop on site, where about 750 locomotives are fixed and where they replace about 10,000 pairs of railcar wheels annually.



We returned home after a very educational day, and our summer travels came to an end.