Nebraska - Day 8 - David City and agrarian art

Willow Springs State Recreation Area, Norfolk

Saturday, 8 October 2022

today's route

The route I took is the vaguely northwest one; that other nearly due north line was the route I took coming from Minnesota.

Only a few miles out of Gretna, I passed through the tiny town of Linoma (halfway between Lincoln and Omaha) and was surprised to see a lighthouse sitting by the road.  A sign had warned me of the upcoming "Historic Linoma Lighthouse" but I hadn't realized it'd be so close by.  Its location is vaguely justified by it sitting near a small lake, but it was actually built in 1939 as a tourist attraction.  There's a photo and an interesting account of life in the '30s at this link.   https://nebraskaarchitecture.org/linoma-beach-lighthouse

I passed a sign for the Oxbow Trail, which I wasn't familiar with but turns out to have been a frequent route for travelers west in the 1840s and '50s.  The route of the trail was shaped like an oxbow, hence the name.

I saw a whole lot of cows today, and a couple of cowboys with one of the herds.

I passed a sign saying "Agrometrology" with an arrow pointing right.  That word, I learned, refers to the study of weather and climate to maximize crop yield.  The University of Nebraska has a facility (to the right) that does field research on that topic.

I saw a whole lot of dead corn standing in fields.  And a lot of soybeans, also dead.

I drove through the town of Wahoo, just because I didn't believe there was a town with that name.  Nice little ordinary town.  I had to cross the Wahoo River to get there, which I figure is where the name came from, and I learned "wahoo" is the common name of a shrub that grows in the area.  

It turns out Wahoo is the county seat and has an impressive courthouse.

Saunders County Courthouse
built 1904 in the Renaissance Revival style.

I think my photo captured the torpedo that somewhat ominously sits on the lawn - but it turns out to be a replica torpedo.  It was placed there as a memorial to the submarine USS Wahoo and its crew of 65 that were sunk in WWII after themselves sinking 20 Japanese ships.

A piece of trivia: producer Darrell F. Zanuck is a native son of Wahoo.

Anyway, as I was driving down the road to leave town, I passed what looked just like a dog park.  So I found a place to turn around, went back, and sure enough it was a dog park.  A nice guy with 2 large dogs was there, and before we left another nice guy with 1 large dog and 2 small children came.  So Dext had a few new dogs to sniff and sort of play with, and a new area to sniff around in.  That was a lucky find.

And not much farther down the road we came to David City, pop. 2,995.  Of course, I planned to visit here on account of my brother, but Google's maps showed me another reason: the Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art.  I thought that sounded oddball enough that I should visit.  

The folks at the museum told me it's the only agrarian art museum in the country, which I have no trouble believing.  And they said well-known travel publications and museums have called their little place "a gem."  I'm afraid I'm not a good person to review a collection of art, mostly being one of those I-don't-know-much-about-art-I-just-know-what-I-like types of people.  But they let me take some photos, so I'll show a sample of the kinds of things they displayed.  You'll see there's a wide variety of styles, though the subjects don't vary much.

I'm including this photo to show the distance I was standing from the painting.
The next photo is an enlargement directly from this photo.

This is the enlargement of the painting as it appears from a distance.
The next photo shows how this image was really constructed.

See explanation below for how this was painted.

These are Sandhill Cranes.
They migrate through Nebraska in spring and fall, in numbers up to 650,000 birds.

These next two show Nebraska weather.

I like the title.

It took me more than a few minutes to realize these were beekeepers,
not workers cleaning up a radioactive event.

To me, this looks like a painting,
not a photograph.

So now that I've shown a sample of what this museum has to offer, I'll show you a little of what the town has.

More of that row of buildings shown below.

Very fancy, huh?

More of downtown.

The sign says this was once the 1st National Bank
(I'm guessing on the first floor) and the
Thorpe Opera House (likely 2nd floor).
Today it houses the local Chamber of Commerce.

After leaving David City, we passed a turn for the town of Osceola, as in Osceola County in Florida.  Nebraska has a whole lot of towns with the same names as those in other states.

Farther along we turned onto US-81, designated the Andrew Jackson Higgins Expressway.  I'd never heard of this man, but he sounds like a fascinating person.  He's a native of Nebraska, was expelled from high school for brawling, designed a landing craft that made a significant contribution in WWII, and insisted on racial and gender diversity in his factories.  Even Hitler recognized his importance to the war effort by calling him the "New Noah."  Here's the link to his Wikipedia page.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Andrew-Higgins

In Columbus I passed an odd collection of bells in towers in a park.  The collection is called the Quincentenary Belltower and it consists of 10 large bronze bells that were collected from churches and schools.  Calling it a "tower" - singular - makes it sound like they're all in one tower, but they're not.  I didn't stop and get out, mainly because I couldn't figure out where to do it.  But I could see that each bell was in its own tower, and there were at least 2 separate ranks of these towers.  I think the bells no longer move but are struck electronically somehow.

The town of Madison has a slogan: "Progress  Pride  Possibilities."

I passed more fields of corn and soybeans - though these had been harvested.  An apple orchard, and a whole lot more cows.

I came to an intersection and took this photo because of the sign.

But the background is also a good example of the countryside around here.

In Norfolk, pop. 24,955, I came to Johnny Carson Blvd.  Which surprised me enough to look it up and learn that Norfolk is considered his boyhood home, and some enterprising person has opened his former house for tourists.  I'm sorry to think that it's likely most people these days are too young to know who he was or what pleasure he brought.

Near the town of Hadar, pop. 291, I passed a historical marker for The Meridian Highway.  I didn't stop, and I now know the marker wouldn't have told me as much as I learned by looking it up.  It turns out I've encountered this highway before, because the present-day course follows US-81, which I've seen in other states.  It used to run from Canada to Mexico, and it still starts at Pembina, ND, though it now stops in Ft. Worth, TX.  Still, in its guise as the Pan American Highway, it currently extends from Winnipeg to the tip of South America.  Its name comes from the 6th Principal Meridian, a baseline for surveys in Nebraska and Kansas (where the highway began).

Then I followed Google's 2nd alternate route to tonight's campground.  I learned today that Nebraska has a lot of unpaved roads that function as regular routes.  Google's first choice was for me to take a local road that would have taken me over about 10 miles of gravel road.  Instead, I chose route #2 that would require what looked like only 4 miles of gravel.

What I found was that the first 2 miles I drove were gravel, but after that this 2nd choice was paved.  And if I'd taken a slightly longer route that Google refused to consider, I could have taken it all on pavement.  Google doesn't care what the road surface is.  All its algorithms care about is the official speed limit, regardless of whether those limits are even realistic.  So I got semi-lucky with only 2 unpaved miles.

When I got to the campground, I found it nearly full - today being a Saturday.  And there seemed to be a semi-organized effort to do some trick-or-treating here, with lots of kids wearing costumes and lots of RVers passing out candy.  I know it's old fashioned of me, but I remember when the holidays were celebrated on the actual day, and not spread out over weeks.  After all, today is the 8th and Halloween isn't for another 3+ weeks.