The Great Platte River Road and on to Denver

Jane Reporting for 30th September

Yesterday (30th September) we back-tracked a mile or so to visit the Great Platte River Road Archway, a 'museum' that goes across the I-80 just before Kearney.

The Archway
It's a little hard to see in this photo but the arch really does span the I-80.  I know it looks like it only goes over the car park here, but honestly, it really does go over the road.

Archway Monument goes right over the I-80

We drove under the arch the day before but arrived at the museum via the local roads.  After a tour of the various car parks we settled on a suitable one and on the way to the museum Lyn stopped off to have her photo taken with a friend.

Lyn and the bison

Inside the huge building the escalator rose up from the foyer taking us into the walk through dioramas.  We were issues with headsets which gave us short re-enactments of typical thoughts and events on the wagon trains west.

Up onto the arch over the interstate

Fort Kearney was the hub for the westward migration during the wagon train era but further along the road the trails split off to go to the California gold fields, Oregon, or the Mormon settlement near the Great Salt Lake.

The dioramas were very good:

One of the walk-through dioramas

Another scene showing things abandoned on the trail

Once we had finished with the wagon train era we walked through areas explaining the Pony Express and telegraph, the advent of rail and then of the motor car and roads.

The Lincoln Highway - 'Main Street America' - has just celebrated an anniversary and there was a large display about that and the I-80 which replaced it.  Here Gary and Geoff pose with one of the exhibits:

Gary and Geoff pose in the Lincoln Highway / I-80 display

There was also a mocked up diner with booths and little table juke boxes:

Table jukebox in the diner

In the wall of the diner there were window that looked out over the I-80 running below the arch.

On the Road
I'm sure if you drive enough miles in America you can see almost everything on the road.  Here we were over-taking a castle:

Howl's Moving Castle, perhaps?

State Quarters

State Quarters: Arizona