Nebraska - Day 27 - Lincoln

Pawnee State Recreation Area, Lincoln

Thursday, 27 October 2022

When I looked at the street view on Google for the Nebraska History Museum, I could see that there were a few parking spaces on the street nearby with meters, but I figured these spaces would go fast as the business day went on, so I wanted to get there early.

The museum opened at 9:00, and Google said it'd take more than an hour to get there on the interstate (which I never seem to go the speed limit on), so I left the Grand Island campground before 7:30.

today's highway route

some of today's route through Lincoln

I heard on Morning Edition (public radio) that the disease RSV is targeting more than just kids.  From earlier reports it sounded like pediatric hospitals were getting slammed with cases of this respiratory illness, but today they said it actually hits anybody who's vulnerable, which also includes older people - especially those who already have respiratory illnesses (such as asthma).

Online information (which may or may not be accurate) says RSV and the flu and Covid are all similar, are all respiratory illnesses, and may be coming in full force this winter.  As one doctor put it: "It's like RSV took a two year sabbatical, was working out twice a day, meditating, eating well, and is now back and showing off."

Lots of doctors have commented for months about the low rate of flu last year because of everybody wearing masks and taking Covid precautions.  Well, most people are no longer taking Covid precautions and the viruses are still around.  Yet another reason for me to keep wearing masks in indoor spaces.

Driving into town I saw a sign that said: "Lincoln: Birthplace and Home of Weird Wally."  Which meant nothing but confusion to someone like me who's not from here.  But I looked it up and learned that he was a well-known and well-liked and respected used car salesman.  Here's a sample of what I found.   https://www.1011now.com/Remembering-Weird-Wally

I got to the museum about 15 minutes early, which turned out to be a good thing, not only because I wanted to walk Dext but also because the parking meters didn't want to acknowledge my existence.  Or rather, that of my credit card.  For one thing, they were very tall parking meters and I had to stand on tip-toe just to see the screen.  They were the kind that will take either quarters or a credit card, and I didn't have quarters so I tried my card.  The meters kept telling me my card was invalid - probably because I needed to get a different angle on the in-and-out-of-the-slot process.  (My RV takes 1½ spaces, so I'm on the hook for 2 parking meters.)

But I got lucky.  There was a Chase bank back-to-back with the museum, so when it opened I ran in with some dollar bills and got quarters, which the meters took.  I went back to the bank after I'd visited the museum because I needed more gas money from my account.  But at least I got to park.

The Nebraska History Museum has 3 floors.  The top floor had an exhibit about women's suffrage, because 2020 was the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment.  What I learned in the museum was that Nebraskans had been trying unsuccessfully for more than 60 years to get women the right to vote in the state.  I spent about half my time on this floor, and these first photos are from those exhibits.

First, a vocabulary lesson:

I don't think I knew this.

And the introduction:

Racism as well as sexism limited citizens' access to voting.

see explanation below

Small victories:

There were 2 rounds in the battle for full suffrage in Nebraska.  Here's the first fight.

If at first you don't succeed . . .

This is the first page from the voter pamphlet.
Text and second page enlarged below.

Second page.
Text enlarged below.

And here's what the opposition sounded like.

And here was the result:

see explanation below

The Nebraska legislature was willing to ratify the 19th amendment, though it hadn't been willing to pass similar legislation for its own citizens.

League of Women Voters
at their 2nd annual convention in 1921.

Voting rights today:

Most, though not all, states allow
voter registration online.
I see Texas is not on this list.

This shows the results of a poll taken of
visitors to the museum.

From there I went downstairs to the 2nd floor where they had a dual show: state history & photos from an exhibit titled "National Geographic's Women: A Century of Change."

First, the history.

Nebraska's legislature has only 1 house.

A sort of explanation for the "the good life" sign I saw
when I first entered the state.

These are only a few of the artifacts they had on display.

I didn't know Vise-Grips were invented here.

Or Kool-Aid either.

The stamps on this envelope prove it
traveled by Pony Express.

Charter of the Nebraska
Farmers' Alliance.

I don't know why, but it never occurred to me
that phone booths would have been segregated.
But of course  they were.

And these from the National Geographic exhibit are a few of the photos taken around the world that show various qualities, along with explanations for each.

Just try not to smile when you look at these photos.

These next two showing strength have multiple layers.

This photo doesn't show what you think it does.
See explanation below.

And this next one, to me, shows both qualities:

What the photographer did.

I had a hard time getting a photo without the glare,
and I ended up not being able to show
the faces of the men in the car next to this one.
But see the explanation above.

The exhibition included photos of a number of well-known women with information about them.  This is one of those.

Gloria Allred

The following photo was in a section about photographic techniques, but I thought the subject matter showed strength very clearly.

See explanation below of what and where this photo is about.

The 1st floor of the museum had displays about the state's archaeology.  But I'd already used up most of the time I had on the parking meters, and I'd already visited fossil sites in the state.  They had a skeleton of a huge mastodon (well, no mastodon was small, but it seemed even huger seeing it put together) in the lobby of the museum, which I gawked at.  The skeleton was from Wisconsin, but they'd found mastodon bones in Nebraska as well.  Anyway, I figured I didn't need to see more fossils and called it a day at the museum.

From there, I tried hard to get a photo of the state capitol, which was a few blocks away, but I could only get it in pieces.

Here's the upper part.

And here's the lower part.
The base is absolutely massive - taking
up an entire large city block just
with the building (the lawns weren't large).

Here's an internet photo of the two
pieces put together, though you can
see it doesn't even begin to include all
the base.

Online I learned that there are actually 4 courtyards inside that exterior.  The tower is 400' tall, topped with a 19' statue called "The Sower," as in planting seeds.  That's actually an interesting-looking figure and I'm attaching a pdf that shows it.   https://capitol.nebraska.gov/sower

The capitol was built in 4 stages, between 1922 and 1932, and it came in under budget and was entirely paid for when it was finished.  Those were the days.  A product of its time, both the building and the sculpture are at least partly Art Deco.  It was very impressive.

I did a lot of driving around town, going to various places.  Lincoln has a whole lot of one-way streets, which I'm sure helps the traffic pattern but is tough for a visitor to navigate.  

I'm sorry I wasn't able to make time for the International Quilt Museum, shown below.  Something else for my next-visit list.

International Quilt Museum

I drove by the University of Nebraska campus - very attractive.

I was on my way to a Uhaul dealer who, I'd been assured when I called yesterday, sold propane for RVs.  But when I got there, they said they only fill individual tanks, and for my RV I'd have to go to Lee's Propane, back some miles the way I'd come.  At least they were nice enough to give me the address.  I wish I'd known when I first came into town.  But it was getting chilly at nights and I was down to only a quarter of a tank, so I had to go.

First, though, I stopped at Pentzer Park, which I'd found on one of Google's maps.  It turned out to be a small neighborhood park next to the local Salvation Army headquarters.  I keep not being able to have a pleasant walk with Dext because he persists in eating things when we're out.  I have no idea what he's putting in his mouth and often think he's sniffing when it suddenly turns to grabbing.  I had the sour apple spray with me, but Dext's mouth was already busy before I realized it, and the directions said to keep the spray out of his eyes so I didn't want to spray his mouth (which I thought of).  So I was left with cutting the walk short at that point, even though that doesn't seem to be getting the message across.

In many places around town I saw signs in Arabic and Vietnamese for stores and services.  Nebraska - or at least Lincoln - has clearly moved beyond the German immigrant experience I saw in the museum.

We went to a PetsMart, because I still didn't have bowls for the kitties.

I drove through town to get to the propane and saw lots of signs saying I was on the Detroit-Lincoln-Denver Highway.  I don't remember hearing about this, and oddly the explanation I found was on an Iowa website.   https://iowadot.gov/dldhighway

From Lincoln I drove only about 10 more miles to tonight's state park.  This was the first one I've visited that had a frequent presence by park rangers, which I found reassuring.

My campsite was on a hilltop, which was nice, but it wasn't level.  I thought about changing sites and cleared it with one of the rangers, but I finally decided it wasn't so bad it was worth moving for.  I was tired when we got in, and once we were settled, I was done.

All the campsites had concrete pads, which was nice, and a good half of them had dogs, which was tolerable now that I've got only the one dog.

There weren't all that many people here tonight, but the tags on the campsites showed almost all of them had been reserved for the weekend.  University of Nebraska home football game coming up.