Hastings, NE to Ogallala, NE

Many photos today! It was a busy and rewarding day, and not too terribly long a drive, either! We left Hastings, Nebraska and headed west, this time (for the first time) along Interstate 80, which, as you probably know, is a HUGE highway (speed limit 75--wheee!). It actually follows quite closely the Oregon Trail but is a far cry from feeling like you're on the trail.

We made two major stops. The first one was at a Disney-landish place that spans the entire highway, called The Great Platte River Road Archway Monument. It looked touristy but fun, so we went. It was pretty great--a huge diorama of sorts of the history of the area from the Oregon Trail through the present time. This ENORMOUS bison sculpture that was outside began our adventure there.

It also seemed like fate (I hadn't seen mention of this feature ANYWHERE in any of our guide books or even the brochure for the place) to see this sign, which indicated that this museum is built on land called the 1733 Ranch, located 1733 miles from both Boston and San Francisco!! As these two cities represent 1) where we live and where I come from, and 2) where we began and where our trip will end, it seemed almost poetic! (even though it does say "Frisco", a big no-no....GRRRRR!)


When we entered the monument, we were greeted by this man, who was one of the people who do historic reenactment talks at the site. He was wonderful, gave Phoebe a harmonica (!!) and chatted and played harmonica with us for quite awhile.

And here's the part where we play Your Age is Showing. Do you remember these machines? I haven't seen one in years and years. It is so reminiscent of the road trips I took with my family when I was a kid, when we stopped at gas stations (in the 60's and early 70's) and always bought a bottle of strawberry soda (yick) from a machine just like this one (I never had even a sip of strawberry soda except on such a occasion, so the taste is the taste of road trips--you know what I mean?). And this one at the monument was a working vending machine--cold bottles of soda and all! Phoebe was completely baffled by my extreme fondness (not to mention fervor) for a soda machine, but she was a good sport and took a picture for me. It has nothing to do with the Oregon Trail, but it was so cool!


We went on from there to Fort Kearney, the first major stopping point on the Oregon Trail. It was an interesting spot, though it highlighted in the most powerful ways the trivialization of the Indian experience and response to the western migration of "settlers". I will say that on the Oregon Trail, the Indian perspective is really largely invisible, rarely mentioned in exhibits, etc, except in description of either battles or how "everyone got along fine". At Fort Kearney, though, it was hard to miss. The fort served as protection for the settlers (from Indians, mostly) in the harsh west. We went in and watched a slide show about the history of the fort, and I will never forget one slide (an artist's rendering) of a battle scene that took place near Fort Kearney. In the painting, there are Indians (mostly Sioux) lying all over the ground, covered in blood and obviously dead, and the voiceover is pointing out that three settlers lost their lives in this horrible battle. It felt like it went way beyond discomfort right into blatant willful omission. Of course, there was a good deal of tribute to the Pawnee Scouts, Pawnee Indians who had had historically difficult relationships with the Sioux in the area, and so became the helpers to the soldiers at Fort Kearney.

Most of the original buildings and structures are no longer there, though some have been reconstructed. The grounds are beautiful, though. We met two women from Washington and Vermont who were also traveling through, and they took this photo for us by a covered wagon, which was nice, as there aren't often opportunities to get pictures of both of us. So you know we're really here, that it's not like that moon landing conspiracy or anything.

After Fort Kearney, we moved on to our next stop, Ogallala, Nebraska, a major stop on the Pony Express. The name of the town comes from the Oglala Sioux Tribe, with Oglala meaning "to scatter one's own". Here is an interesting link that we used to learn more about the tribe (we'd also love other suggestions, Pat!). Take a look.