Thursday, Aug. 26 - We left Sioux Falls for Clear Lake, Iowa to see the plane crash site where Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, Richie Valens and Richard Peterson (the pilot) died that snowy night February 2, 1950. 216 miles, arriving shortly before 3pm when the thunder and lightning started continuing overnight. Clear Lake, population 7,777 elevation 1240, just 30 miles south of the Minnesota border.
Friday, Aug. 27 - What a beautiful town, the mansions on the lake are amazing, even the more modest homes were well kept, didn't see a slum in town. We drove into town to see the Surf Ballroom, the Winter Dance Party tour finished up , Buddy Holly decided to charter a flight instead of taking the cold bus. Bad idea Buddy. The pilot was lost control of the plane, crashing within 10 miles of Clear Lake. We decided to wait to see the Surf Ballroom. Martina McBride was scheduled for 8pm, when a concert is scheduled the tours are curtailed. We were able to go out to the crash site between showers. Along the road .4 of a mile from the crash site there are a pair of large Buddy Holly glasses supported by a couple of cement posts, as you'll see in the picture, visitors have left pairs of glasses, beads and other memorabilia on them. The walk between tall fields of corn take you to the shrine. Pretty sad. Back at the campground we relaxed, had dinner and watched the storm approach, I was in the middle of posting my blog when we lost power then the emergency warning system on the phones went off followed by the sirens. We had to go to the basement of a chapel located in the park. We grabbed Luci then headed out in the drenching rain. Gary dropped me off at the chapel while he went to park, when he got down to the basement he asked "where's Luci?" He thought I brought her with me and I thought he'd bring her. Poor baby was huddled on the floor of the back seat as a violent storm raged. She was the center of attention, everyone wanted to pet her. We were in the basement about 40 minutes, 8" of rain fell in that period. How can people live in the tornado zone?
Saturday, Aug. 28 - More storms in the night, not much sleeping going on. A wet dreary day - we hung around the coach until dinner out at Rookies, downtown Clear Lake, a beautiful evening, we walked along the lake and did some geo caching, then we drove down to the Surf Ballroom again, a private event was being held, we couldn't go in but we did beg security for a quick look. We discovered that Sunday it doesn't open until 1, we had to leave for Des Moines in the morning, dang we missed out.
Sunday, Aug. 29, A short drive to Des Moines, 116 miles. No thunder storms! (yet) Population 215,000 elevation 995.
Monday, Aug. 30 - Continuing our capital city tour, this time we were able to take a tour, the capitol was completed in 1886, the first building burned, it seems to be a common problem in the early days. The only 5 domed capitol in the country. During the conVeRSion from gas to electricity in the early 1900'a a worker accidentally started a fire in the legislative wing which spread to the attic but was put out pretty fast. I have been curious as to why most states in the east have so many counties, Oregon only has 36 while Iowa has 100. I asked the tour guides, it's because at the time when the county seats were the center of government, the residents could travel to and from in a days time. So now I know!
Tuesday, Aug 31 - Ames, Iowa home of University of Iowa has a beautiful garden on their grounds, next to the football stadium, Reiman Gardens. The garden has a dozen garden areas, a conservatory, childrens garden, butterfly exhibit etc. The gardens were hosting a 3 day quilt show, the Iowa quilters guild made 100's of quilt blocks for display. Talk about perfect timing for me!. Another special exhibit of oragami sculptures were scattered through out the gardens. The butterfly exhibit the day we were there had about 500 South American butterflies, the docent inside said sometimes they have as many as 2,000.
Thursday, Sept. 2 - We left about 9:30 for the 178 mile drive to Lincoln, Nebraska area, we are nestled in between The Lincoln Highway (I-80) and very busy railroad tracks. If you close your eyes you can imagine the freeway traffic sounding like the ocean but the RR tracks - well it's good for commerce I suppose. Lincoln, the capital of Nebraska has a population of 290,000 and elevation of 1176.
Friday, Sept. 3 - Happy anniversary to us! 8 years ago we left on our adventures. Originally we were going to be gone for a year but we loved our life on the road we made the decision to continue. The capitol building in Lincoln was completed in 1932, the original building was crumbling, was torn down, the new one was placed at the same location - the tower on the plains. 15 stories, Lincoln has height restrictions, no structure can be taller than the capitol building. Nebraska , the only unicameral state legislature in the US, has only one non partisan law making house rather than a house and senate. Who knew? We had lunch at Billy's, a quirky restaurant in a historic home near the capital. After lunch we went to the International Quilt Museum at the University of Nebraska, it's home to the largest quilt collection in the world. The current exhibit "Try to make sense of 9/11". several large blocks of the HUGE quilt to honor all the people who lost their lives that horrible day, soon to be 20 years ago. Man where does time go? In other galleries were a collection antique quilts, Abstract Design in American quilts and a collection of South Asian quilts.
Saturday, Sept. 5 On our way to Lincoln we passed the Strategic Air Command and Space Museum, Gary was salivating. Unfortunately he was disappointed, sure there was a large collection of airplanes, his said he's seen better museums plus it was dark in the museum. We needed to go to Joann's for some fabric so we thought we'd go into Omaha. Well somehow I programmed the wrong address into the navigation system, we ended up in a high end neighborhood. Oh well, we got to see how the other half (Quarter) live.
Monday, Sept. 6- I needed to stay home today to do some housekeeping including publishing this blog. Gary went into Lincoln to see the Sunken Gardens, a former neighborhood dumpsite. The only Nebraska garden to be listed in the "300 Best Gardens to visit in the US and Canada. Now I wish I would have taken the time to go, it sounds beautiful with over 30,000 annuals planted as well as trees, shrubs and perennials.
