Road trips are funny things. You are blissfully in the moment and then, you remember you're on a schedule! You're exploring, but there's only so much time in the day. Eventually, you need to make time on the highway. The past two days, we've flown along at 75-80 mph (the speed limit more or less) on endless flat stretches of road with what seems like a single scenic view for miles and miles, passing by town after town. You can't stop at them all. You can barely stop at one or two. So, we've added a task for the navigator of the day. Learn something about what we're missing out on. There are lots of interesting town names. Rifle. Parachute. Silt. Crook. And, they all have a story. There's a dispute about how "What Cheer" (yes, an actual town name in Iowa) got it's name. IIiff (which is really I'Iiff) has 213 inhabitants as of the 2000 census and was named for a cattlemen who had a ranch nearby.
On this side of the Mississippi, each exit is a history lesson. There's a ghost town in Proctor, CO. In fact, there are ghost towns or ruins of town gone bust all across the heartland and elsewhere in the States. Nebraska is the keeper of many Western Expansion artifacts. A Pony Express Station. Forts. The Homestead National Monument in Beatrice which commemorates passage of the Homestead Act of 1862. Abraham Lincoln said: "It is the purpose of our government to elevate the condition of men, to
lift artificial burdens from all shoulders and to give everyone an
unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life." People were granted 160 acres of free land in return for residence and making the land productive. Women, African-Americans and immigrants were all allowed to claim land. Native Americans were not so lucky. Much of our agriculture history and evolution stems from this one act. Fascinating.
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