Yesterday, we spotted this very small public library in a very small town. The sign in front announces the four times a week that they are open for two and a half hours each time. We are very fortunate. The last 25 miles of our trip to Council Bluffs was detoured because of flooding of the Missouri River that has lasted for about three months. Al least one overpass has sunk because of the standing water. What a mess. Later that day we visited Kanesville Tabernacle in Iowa and Winter Quarters, NE. Very cool.
This morning we walked across the Missouri River between Omaha, NE and Council Bluffs, IA on a really interesting foot bridge. After that we visited the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in Council Bluffs, IA.
Then we followed the Mormon Trail from Council Bluffs, IA to Grand Island, NE. Interestingly, the Lincoln Highway - the first transcontinental highway in the US - follows some of the same route. Now here is where I get a little melancholy about what I saw of the Lincoln Highway today. In 1947, when I was two years old, our little family drove the same road. It was before seat belts and car seats for children. So, I, as a two year-old, stood the whole time leaning against either my mother in the front seat or against the door in the back seat so that I could see everything. As we drove along the highway today, I looked for buildings that I would have seen in 1947. And, as we drove through this section of the country in 1947, none of us in the car had any inkling of the tragedy that would happen to our family just a few hundred miles away in Wyoming the next day. More to follow. Richard
The bottom 2 pictures are in Grand Island, NE--a gas station that is still open and where Richard's family might have bought gas in 1947, and the bottom picture is near there, it's part of a seedling mile of the Lincoln Highway.  It's one of 2 that are still intact.-Ann