Good places we visited

Six good places we visited plus Pikes Peak (scroll down)

1. Amana, Iowa http://www.amanacolonies.org/ Lynn had visited the Amana village before and it sounded interesting.  From the moment we entered, I felt charmed and impressed.  Neat, clearly thoughtful, industrious, open to parts of the world but refusing to be overcome or swept away by it.
   
2. Wrestling museum, Waterloo, Iowa http://www.wrestlingmuseum.org/  I wrestled in high school and college and was interested that there was a wrestling museum.  Some of the literature mentioned Dan Gable and Vern Gagne, names that rang a bell and stirred memories.  Lynn urged me not to blow it off but to put out the effort and visit the place.  I am quite glad I took her advice.  It was moving and impressive.  They have exhibits and drawings from many aspects of the sport, starting with Jacob in the Bible wrestling an angel.  I talked to the coach of Dan Gable (Olympic champion) and he and a friend both mentioned the fact that is quite surprising to us old guys that girls are wrestling now.  Not women's wrestling, which we knew in our day, but girls wrestling boys with the same rules and the same intentions as boys know. 
   
3. Boys Town http://www.boystown.org/   Even the web site is moving and interesting.  The notion of being an abandoned child in the 1920's is daunting.  Boys have a difficult time with their needs for gentleness and understanding while at the same time, growing the toughness and bravery often required of men.  The story of how Boys Town was created by a Catholic priest in Omaha, Nebraska and continued and expanded to assist many boys and now girls, too, is gripping.  We learned that they now have sites in several parts of the US and include children from several foreign countries.
   
4. National Homestead Monument http://www.nps.gov/home/  As Lynn has said, the theme of homesteading was a recurrent one on our trip.  The National Homestead Monument includes several gripping exhibits.  First, as you walk in, you pass a series of metal plates showing the many states that were homesteaded and the portion of each that was included.  The basic idea was to settle the land and the US government offered ownership of a homestead (up to 160 acres) to anyone who filed a claim, erected some sort of housing, lived on the land for 5 years and raised some sort of crop.  The museum does a good job showing the value of success in completing the requirements and going on to live well but it also makes clear the pain and danger and despair that many immigrants experienced, when after an extremely arduous trip from Europe or some place, the wind or fire or disease (zero antibiotics, remember) destroyed plans and killed hopes.  We learned that 60% of those attempting homesteading failed.  We also learned that the Homestead act is no longer in effect but that the last homesteader was in Alaska in 1974, Kenneth Deardorff.  The act expired in 1986!  This impressive map shows the portion of the US that was open to homesteading.
   
5. Macgregor ranch http://www.macgregorranch.org/   I saw many cowboy movies on Saturday afternoons as a boy.  This ranch, set in a lovely valley among awe-inspiring mountains is the real thing, the scene they were trying to convey in those movies.  As someone said during our visit and picnic lunch, one needs nothing on such a visit but to sit and look.
   
6. rt 385- We traveled this road from Sterling, Colorado to Rapid City, South Dakota.  It has the sort of views that make my sweetie's heartstrings vibrate: nothing but grass and sky.  No traffic, no farms, no nothing.
   

    

pikes peak- Not one of the big heart-throbs but breath-taking.  Literally.  Lynn had her fill of steep curves with no guard rails driving up part way and decided to sit out the drive to the top.  We were on top of a very high mountain in Hawaii and experienced the lack of oxygen and moisture.  This was higher and drier and harder to breathe.  Worthwhile maybe but us older lowlanders don't need much of it. I learned that Pikes Peak is a little over 14,000 but Denali in Alaska is 21,000 and Everest is 29,000.  Don't bother going there.