Friday, July 10, 2009

Day 5 Summer Vacation 2009

In yesterdays blog, I promised to do two things today. First was to take pictures of The Avenue of Flags and the Second was to take pictures of the water tower… so here they are.

Avenue of Flags, I read that there are over 300 US Flags, all donated by Veterans and local citizens of York NE. Every lamp post has a flag.

0621 Avenue of Flags York NE0622 Avenue of Flags York NE

The water tower, right behind our hotel. Isn’t this the most colourful water tower you have ever seen?

0514 Water Tower York NE0518 Water Tower York NE0519 Water Tower York NE

We had a late breakfast today since we are not checking out, and then Karen did our laundry. Around noon we headed out to visit Grand Island Nebraska. There is some Lincoln Highway there and a restaurant that we want to check out.

First stop in Grand Island NE was the Visitors Centre where we got some brochures for attractions in the area.

0521 Tourist Information Centre Grand Island NE

Then it was on to the Farmer’s Daughter Cafe for some lunch. No pies though, they were all sold out. We had read about this place and I had wanted to try the Peanut Butter Pie, but they forgot to bake them this morning. I told the owner that I had driven all the way from Ontario Canada to try her famous Peanut Butter Pie, she was sorry, but thanked us for stopping in.

520c Farmer`s Daughter Cafe Grand Island NE520d Farmer`s Daughter Cafe Grand Island NE520e Farmer`s Daughter Cafe Grand Island NE

After lunch, we began our search for Nebraska’s Seedling Mile. The original Lincoln Highway Association built one mile of road in each state that the Lincoln Highway passed through as an example of how they expected the highway to be built and to what standards. These sections in each State were known as Seedling Miles. On Route 66 the same thing happened, but they were referred to as Ideal Sections. Most of Nebraska’s Seedling Mile has dissapeared under ashphalt, or has been torn up and replaced. The road name remains as Seedling Mile.

0528 Lincoln Hwy Seedling Mile Grand Island NE0529 Lincoln Hwy Seedling Mile Grand Island NE0531 Lincoln Hwy Seedling Mile Grand Island NE

We saw on the PBS video that there is a small, 200 ft section still remaining of the original concrete located in behind Kensinger’s Service & Supply, so we went to check that out.

As we pulled in to Kensinger’s, Dick Grudzinski came out to greet us. Dick operates this station now and has for many many years. He was one of the featured speakers, retelling his story and the story of his gas station on the PBS documentary.

0534 Kensinger`s Service & Supply Grand Island NE0539 Dick Grudzinski - Kessinger`s Service & Supply Grand Island NE0538 Kessinger`s Service & Supply Grand Island NE

Dick pointed the way to the original early 1900’s concrete behind his gas station. It is very overgrown with weeds and long abandoned. What really surprised me is that there is no sign or plaque acknowledging what this concrete represents. The Lincoln Highway is not promoted like Route 66 is. What a shame.

0541 The only Original Concrete in NE behind Kessinger`s Grand Island NE0542 The only Original Concrete in NE behind Kessinger`s Grand Island NE0546 The only Original Concrete in NE behind Kessinger`s Grand Island NE

We then went to the Museum of the Prairie Pioneer in Grand Island Nebraska. They have many displays housed in several buildings, and there is an outdoor 1899 re-created Railroad Town and other Pioneer related displays.

Here are some photos from Railroad Town.

0576 Stuhr`s Museum of the Prairie Pioneer Grand Island NE 0595 Stuhr`s Museum of the Prairie Pioneer Grand Island NE0596 Stuhr`s Museum of the Prairie Pioneer Grand Island NE0599 Stuhr`s Museum of the Prairie Pioneer Grand Island NE0612 Stuhr`s Museum of the Prairie Pioneer Grand Island NE 0602 Stuhr`s Museum of the Prairie Pioneer Grand Island NE

Also within Railroad Town, is Henry Fonda’s Birth Place home. Henry was born right here in Grand Island Nebraska. He lived here until the age of 9 months, then moved to Omaha with his family. The historical society moved the house here to Railroad Town to preserve it.

0616 Henry Fonda`s Birth Home Stuhr`s Museum of the Prairie Pioneer Grand Island NE0617 Henry Fonda`s Birth Home Stuhr`s Museum of the Prairie Pioneer Grand Island NE

We had homemade cherry pie and ice cream at the Silver Dollar Saloon in Railroad Town. Karen ate most of her ice cream cone before I had a chance to get the camera out to take the photo.

617a Silver Dollar Saloon Stuhr`s Museum of the Prairie Pioneer Grand Island NE

It was a hot day today, this morning started out sunny, but then changed to partly cloudy. We saw a high of 32 C today.

If you wish to view all of our photos from today, please click on the link to my FLICKR site.

Tomorrow we are heading to Gothenburg NE along the Lincoln Highway.

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