Boys Town

Walnut Creek Rec Area RV Park, Papillion, Nebraska

Yesterday we visited the village of Boys Town on the west side of Omaha. I’m sure most of you know of the 1938 movie starring Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney that brought the attention of the world to what Father Flanagan was doing for boys in a small farming village in Nebraska. The movie won an Oscar for best screen play and Spencer Tracy won the Oscar for best actor. He donated his award to Father Flanagan and the school.

Although Father Flanagan died in 1948, his work lives on and continues to grow. Boys Town has 550 students, pretty equally divided between boys and girls. Yes, girls have been attending since 1979.

Father Flanagan believed there was no such thing as a bad boy, only bad environments, bad examples, bad training and bad thinking. His philosophy is still being practiced today. The youth currently attending are between the ages of 10 and 17 and spend an average of two years at the school. Most of them have been abused or neglected, have at least one parent still alive, and are two to three years behind in school. Some are reunited with their families, others stay until they graduate. There is also vocational training so they have a skill when they leave.

They live in a group home of eight students with a highly trained married couple as their leaders. They attend school, are required to do chores, have spiritual guidance in whatever religious belief they have, participate in fun activities, and are taught to love others and themselves.

In addition to the main facility in Omaha, they now have satellite centers in 17 states and a 24 hour national hotline. There is also a hospital on the grounds in Omaha which also serves the surrounding community.

Many of the buildings were built in the 1940s, but they are in excellent shape. The grounds are very clean and everything looks fantastic. We did a self-guided audio tour. For $5 you can rent a CD that tells you about Boys Town and guides you on a driving tour around the grounds.

We stopped at the History Museum and saw a short video and viewed the exhibits. Then we walked over to the Catholic church to see where Father Flanagan is buried. You can also tour his home, but it was closed yesterday. The tour was interesting and informative. I was quite impressed with the work they are doing and think it is a great model for helping our youth. I wish other communities would learn from the success at Boys Town.

At the visitor center you can see a ball made entirely out of stamps that is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the World’s largest ball of stamps. It is 32 inches in diameter, weighs 600 pounds and has over 4.6 million stamps on it. It was started by students in the stamp collecting club at Boys Town in 1950s with stamps from the postage on letters that came to the center from all around the world and just kept growing. The mural behind the wall is also made entirely of stamps.

The reason for our trip to Omaha was to see our son and his wife, Korey and Cathryn. We’ve had some nice visits with them while we are here. On Wednesday we drove to Korey’s work. He works for Nebraska Outdoor Lutheran Ministries and was promoted in January to Associate Director of Summer Programming, so we stopped to see his new office.

Korey and Cathryn are moving from Omaha to Lincoln in a few weeks, so he also took us to Lincoln to see where they will be living. Cathryn will be working at a rehabilitation hospital in Lincoln next fall for her final semester of clinical field work before graduating with her Doctorate of Occupational Therapy in December. She’s hoping to get a job in Lincoln so they don’t have to move again. She is an excellent student on the Dean’s List. She received a scholarship award while we were here, and we are very proud of her!

Tomorrow we leave for a one night stay in Iowa, and then we plan to be back at Derge Park in Wisconsin for our summer camp hosting gig. The weather here in Omaha has been wonderful this week with highs in the 70s and even a few 80s. Monday night in Wisconsin its back to reality with lows in the 20s. Brrrr!

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Bella Vista, Arkansas

On Thursday we traveled from Little Rock to Bella Vista, which took about 3.5 hours. Severe weather was predicted throughout the area, so we got an early start and dodged storms as we went. We only encountered a little rain. The worst of the storms were south of us, so it was a good thing we got an early start.

Bella Vista is a planned retirement community with many amenities. Our friends Dick and Wanda moved here about ten years ago. We belonged to the same camping club in Wisconsin, and have known them for about twenty years.

We’re staying at Blowing Springs RV Park which is part of the retirement community and run by the Property Owner’s Association. They are a Good Sam member and open to the public.

We’ve been enjoying visiting with Dick and Wanda, sharing some meals together, playing games and doing a little exploring in the area. Yesterday they took us to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville. The museum opened about a year ago and was funded with donations by Alice Walton, the daughter of Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart. She wanted all people to be able to enjoy the museum, so stipulated there was to be no admission charge. We like free.

It’s a very interesting building, very modern in style. Alice Walton dabbled in art, creating this watercolor. Her artistic attempts led to collecting pieces from many American artists, many of which are now on display in the museum.

We meandered throughout the displays enjoying the art. None of us are avid art lovers, so we just took it in. I’d never heard of most of the artists. There were some iconic pieces on display including Rosie the Riveter.

The modern section had several pieces by Andy Warhol including Dolly Parton.

 

There are water features and walking trails outside as well as several large metal sculptures. I really liked this giant tree. That’s Dick and Wanda posing for me. Tonight we’ll watch the Wisconsin Badgers compete in the Final Four of the NCAA tournament, keeping our fingers crossed for a win. We’re leaving tomorrow headed to Omaha to spend several days visiting with our son and daughter-in-law, Korey and Cathryn. Can’t wait to see them!

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Arkansas State Capitol

Yesterday we decided to tour Arkansas’ State Capitol and the downtown area. Rain was in the forecast, so we purchased an all day pass on the electric trolley car for $2 each so we wouldn’t have to walk in the rain. It never did rain, but the trolley ride was fun and the drivers do some narration which was a bonus.

The closest trolley stop to the capitol is a mile away, so we had a nice walk through the downtown area. I had read online that there was not much public parking, but we saw plenty of metered street parking and twelve free visitor parking spaces across the street. The legislature is not currently in session, so I’m guessing when they are there, parking is more difficult to find.

The building was constructed between 1899 and 1915. The original construction cost was not to exceed $1 million. After two architects, two general contractors, six Capitol Commissions and three governors, it was finally completed at a cost of $2.3 million. Yup, sounds like a typical government project.

They advertise tours daily on the hour, but when we got there the next tour wasn’t scheduled for two hours, so we did a self-guided tour using a nice brochure they have available.

The rotunda is not as fancy as others we’ve seen with no stained glass or murals, but there was an awesome chandelier. It is suspended by a 73-foot chain, weighs more than 4,000 pounds and is 12 feet in diameter and 18 feet in height.

At the front of the building are six 10-foot tall brass doors that were purchased from Tiffany’s in 1910 for $10,000.

Arkansas’ Senate and Congress, as well as the governor and many other government officials work in this building. The General Assembly meets in session for only about the first two months of each year. Since they were now not in session, the building felt eerily empty. I’m not sure what they do the rest of the year.

Although this was an impressive building, it is not nearly as ornate as other state capitols we’ve visited. Also, the grounds are not very landscaped and there were not many statues. There was a statue honoring the Little Rock Nine we learned about earlier in the week.

We walked to our next stop which was the State House, Arkansas’ first state capitol. Construction began in 1833 and was finally finished in 1842.

Corners were cut during construction to save money, and the building was constantly in need of repair. The cost of repairs and the need for additional space caused state officials to approve the construction of a new state capitol. Numerous tenants occupied the old state house over the coming years. Efforts by several women’s organizations to save the building resulted in it becoming a museum in 1947.

In 1996 the entire foundation had to be replaced. This had to be done in 6 foot sections to maintain the structural integrity of the building. It took three years to complete. Wow, that had to be a painstaking job.

One of the exhibits inside is called Lights! Camera! Arkansas! and shows the role of Arkansas in Hollywood movies highlighting movies filmed in the state as well as actors from Arkansas. They include Billy Bob Thornton, Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell, Mary Steenburgen and many others. It was quite an interesting exhibit.

Our final visit was to the Arkansas History Museum. There are lots of statues throughout downtown Little Rock and along the Riverfront. I particularly liked the aluminum sculpture in front of the history museum representing square dancing.

The museum had a temporary exhibit about the Bowie knife which Kevin found quite interesting. How the knife became known as the Bowie Knife is not exactly known, but Jim Bowie used a large knife to win a brawl and his brother was instrumental in convincing people it was the first Bowie knife. Those sure were some big knives.

There are quite a few museums in Little Rock and most of them are free. I found the city to be a great place to visit.

Another place we visited was the Heifer International Headquarters building. I didn’t really know what this organization was all about. They had an area for visitors to explore and a nice young lady gave me an overview of the organization. It is a non-profit group working on hunger and poverty throughout the world, currently working in 37 countries. They provide animals for families and the education to raise them. The families are then asked to pass it on to help others in their community. It sounds like they are doing good work throughout the world, but does a non-profit really need such a fancy building?

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Hot Springs National Park

Downtown Riverside RV Park, North Little Rock, Arkansas

Today we headed an hour south to visit Hot Springs National Park. This is certainly not what I have come to expect when I think of a national park.

The visitor center is located in the heart of Hot Springs along a busy main street. On one side of the street are some of the restored bathhouse buildings. Across the street are lots of shops and restaurants. You know you are in a tourist town when they have duck boat tours, a wax museum and an old time photo studio.

Hot Springs is famous for the 47 springs with 143 degree water coming up from underground. The water is 4,000 years old and comes from rain water that has trickled down to increasingly warm rock and eventually makes it way back to the surface. If you look closely, you can see the steam in the pictures below. The water was hot to the touch, but not burning hot.

Most of the springs are now covered and protected. The park collects 700,000 gallons a day for use in the drinking fountains and bathhouses. There are several fountains around the city where people can come and fill water jugs with clean, tasteless and odorless mineral water. We saw lots of people filling their water jugs at these fountains.

The United States acquired the area in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. In 1832 the government created the first U.S. reservation created to protect a natural resource. During the 1800s crude wooden bathhouses were constructed. There were several fires. In the late 1800s some luxurious stone bathhouses were constructed.

People came from all over the country to partake of the healing waters of the hot springs. Doctors regularly prescribed the hot baths to heal all types of remedies including syphilis, rheumatism, liver disease and many other ailments. The visitor center has exhibits of what the baths looked like.

This is one of the individual bath cubicles for the ladies.

After soaking in the bath, people were put into these steam cabinets for up to 30 minutes. It looks like a torture device.

The Buckstaff Bathhouse is the only one still in operation where people can have an hour bathhouse experience for $30. They have been in continuous operation since they opened in 1912. The building in the background was a Navy hospital at one time. It is now a rehabilitation center.

We walked along the downtown admiring the architecture of the bathhouses and hotels. I can just imagine the ladies in their fancy dresses promenading along here in the olden days. The peak time for the area was in 1946 when over 1 million baths were taken. After that modern medicine became more common, and doctors were not prescribing bath treatments. The bathhouses began to close.

We took a drive up Hot Springs Mountain behind the town. There is an observation tower at the top, but since it was quite cloudy and hazy we didn’t feel it would be worth paying to go to the top.

I did get this picture from the top. You can see the roller coasters at an amusement park. I am surprised how hilly (they are actually called mountains) Arkansas is. I was expecting flat farm land. I bet its really beautiful during fall. There are a number of hiking trails on the mountain, but the weather wasn’t that great for a hike, so we headed back home.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Little Rock, Arkansas

Downtown Riverside RV Park, North Little Rock, Arkansas

Sunday greeted us with a fantastic sunrise for our last morning in the Memphis area.

We took our time hooking up, and had an uneventful two hour drive to Little Rock, Arkansas. We’re staying at Downtown Riverside RV Park in North Little Rock. This park is city owned and sits right along the banks of the Arkansas River across from downtown Little Rock. Our full hook-up 50 amp pull-through site is $23.50 a night after the Good Sam discount. They have even cheaper sites that are back-in for Passport America members, but they were all gone when I called. They also have free wi-fi which works quite well. There is lots of traffic in and out of this park.

We have a very nice view out of our back window of the river and downtown. Sunday was a beautiful day and there were lots of pleasure boats on the water. I’ve also seen a few barges come by. There are several bridges that are lit up at night and make for a very pretty night time view. We’re second from the back of the picture in the pull-through sites.

The Clinton Library is across a pedestrian bridge from our location. On Sunday while Kevin was enjoying some basketball on TV, I took a walk over to the library grounds. It is quite an impressive looking building right on the river with beautifully landscaped grounds.

The public can visit for $7, but to be honest, we have no interest in doing so. I’ll admit I’m not very political, but I really can’t recall anything positive about Bill Clinton. All I remember is the blue dress incident and the “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” mess. In fact, it seems to me Hillary had more political influence during his presidency than he did.

I got a kick of the number of people sliding down these hills on large pieces of cardboard. I guess when you don’t have snow, this is what sledding looks like.

I continued my walk along the riverfront area which includes parks, playgrounds, fitness areas, a walking and bike trail, an amphitheater and a farmer’s market. What an awesome job Little Rock has done with their downtown riverfront area. They had these beautiful planters along the street. I love tulips and pansies!

There is a WWII submarine that can be toured, as well as a steamboat that cruises along the river.

Today we visited Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site. I didn’t really know what this was all about, but I have a National Parks Passport Book where you can get stamps for visiting National Parks and Historic Sites, so off we went to explore.

The Visitor Center had a very interesting movie explaining the story of the Little Rock Nine. In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that all schools in the country had to be integrated in Brown vs. Board of Education. States did pretty much nothing to comply. In September of 1957 nine black students attempted to enter Central High School in Little Rock.

Governor Faubus had the National Guard there to deny them entry. Federal District Court Judge Davies ordered the students to be allowed to attend the school. Federal troops had to be sent to escort and protect the students. These are the nine brave young people.

I was born in 1957. I vaguely remember learning about this in school, but I really didn’t comprehend the whole story. How scared these high school students must have been. What struck me was the looks of hate on the faces of some of the white people in the pictures. Growing up in Wisconsin, I never really witnessed segregation. I just don’t get it.

Central High School is still in use today. Over 2,000 students attend this beautiful school. It was built in 1927 covering two city blocks and is 150,000 square feet. Shortly after it was built, the American Institute of Architects named the building America’s Most Beautiful High School. The picture below is the middle part of the building. There are additional wings on both sides, but I couldn’t get it all into one picture. It is still an amazing building.

Of the Little Rock Nine, eight of them finished the year at Central High School. One of them was a senior and graduated from the school. The governor would not give up, however. In 1959 he closed all high schools in Little Rock to keep integration from happening. In a referendum, three-quarters of all Little Rock residents voted to support him. The schools were closed for the entire year. Voters finally voted out the racist school board members, and a new school board reopened the schools.

It took schools in the South a long time to accept integration. By 1966, only 16 percent of black students in the South attended school with white students. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 which allowed funds to be withheld from schools that did not comply, finally forced school districts to comply.

Unfortunately, one of the results of these laws was “white flight”. Many whites fled to the suburbs and inner city schools are still facing big challenges to this day. The neighborhood surrounding Central High School in Little Rock is quite deteriorated. Many of the houses were boarded up or in very poor repair. There were signs of some urban redevelopment, but they have a long way to go.

This Mobil station across the street from the school has been restored to how it looked in 1957. It was the original visitor center before the school was declared a National Historic Site and a new center was built. The gas station was where the media set up during the weeks of September 1957, mainly because there was a pay phone for them to call in their stories. You can see the school in the background.

Wow, I sure learned a lot today!!

This afternoon we rode our bikes along the Arkansas River Trail. This 17 mile walking and biking trail runs along both sides of the river. What a great bike trail. We saw lots of different types of birds and four deer. We rode a total of 16.5 miles. I was definitely fading by the end. That’s about the limit of my endurance.

On one end of the trail is the Big Dam Bridge. Spanning 4,226 feet over the Murray Lock and Dam, it is the longest bridge in the country built specifically for walkers and cyclists. The $12.5 million project took 8 years to complete. It connects the cities of Little Rock and North Little Rock. Little Rock has done an amazing job developing their riverfront area. I’m impressed!!

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Memphis, Tennessee

Tom Sawyer’s RV Park, West Memphis, Arkansas

As we continue heading north, we stopped for three nights near Memphis to explore. This is our first time in this area.

This morning we joined a group of hearty people for a two hour walking tour of historic downtown Memphis. The weather guessers had predicted today to be sunny and in the 60s, so I made our tour reservations thinking it would be a decent day to walk around outside. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, windy and in the 50s, so rather chilly. However, our tour guide Michael kept us entertained, and the tour was worth a bit of cold.

Our first stop was The Peabody Hotel, built in the 1920s and one of the premier hotels of the south. Every president since Truman has stayed here. Neil Diamond composed Sweet Caroline while staying here. We heard rooms are $1,000 per night.

The Peabody has had a unique tradition since the 1930s. Every day at 11 am and 5 pm mallard ducks are brought to the lobby and parade down a red carpet into and out of the lobby fountain. The ducks have a home on the roof of the hotel and are treated very well. They are wild and after 90 days are taken to a farm to be released back into the wild. Memphis was hosting the NCAA tournament this weekend, and there were hundreds of people in the hotel lobby to watch these ducks parade into the fountain.

We took the elevators to the roof where you can see where the ducks live. They even have their own version of The Peabody Hotel in their room.

We walked around the city and learned about some of the Civil War, Civil Rights and musical history of the city. Memphis is rich in history. At the end of the tour we boarded one of the cities trolleys to take us back to Beale Street where we started.

Beale Street is the heart of downtown and reminded me a lot of Bourbon Street in New Orleans, only shorter. Lots of bars and restaurants advertising big ass beers, Jell-O shots, with to-go cups for everything. B.B. King has a club on Beale Street.

Beale Street is famous for a number of reasons including it is where Robert R. Church Sr., the South's first black millionaire made his mark; where Elvis and B.B. King got their starts, and where Martin Luther King, Jr. marched.

Of course, you can’t visit Memphis without seeing all that is Elvis, including his statue.

Memphis became a city due to its location along the Mississippi River. For many years the shipping of cotton was a huge business here. We took a walk down to the river and heard some of the history that goes along with the river. There are still lots of barges that move products up and down the river every day. Notice the riverboat cruise ship on the left. We were to see it again later in the day.

After the walking tour, we walked to the Gibson factory. They have a tour, but it was sold out for the day. This gigantic guitar face is two stories tall and is in their lobby.

The National Civil Rights Museum is a few miles from downtown. It is built next to the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed on April 4, 1968. He was in Memphis to support the sanitation workers who were striking at the time. He marched with them and was shot while standing on the balcony of the motel. It was one of only a few Memphis hotels where blacks were allowed to stay at the time.

There is a wreath outside room 306 where he was standing when he was shot.

Our next stop was Graceland, about 15 minutes from downtown Memphis. We were both born in the 1950s, so don’t really remember Elvis all that well. Tours of Graceland range from $34 to $72 per person, depending on which package you choose. We were not interested enough to spend that kind of money. You wouldn’t believe the lines of people we saw on the grounds when we drove by. I guess lots of people are willing to pay big bucks to see all things Elvis.

Graceland, the house, is on one side of Elvis Presley Blvd. Across the street is a three block museum with lots of Elvis memorabilia including cars and even his plane.

The house sits back a ways from the road with beautiful mature trees in the yard.

There is a long stone wall in front of the property where people sign their names or leave messages. You can see the house is quite a ways back from the road. (click on the picture to enlarge).

Here’s his plane called the Lisa Marie.

My biggest memory of Elvis is that he died the day before my birthday in the year we got married. I do enjoy his music. My favorite Elvis song is Love Me Tender. Our tour guide on the walking tour was telling us that on the anniversary of Elvis’ death in August, there are tons of people who come and mourn his death every year. He said these people are rather fanatic and will buy anything Elvis related. I find it quite sad that such a talented and promising young man ended up the way he did.

We’re staying at Tom Sawyer’s RV Park in West Memphis, Arkansas which is just across the river from Memphis, Tennessee. We have a pull through full hook-up 50 amp site with a concrete pad right on the river. They have sites on the river just for fifth wheels so your big back window is facing the water. We’ve been watching lots of barges travelling up and down the river.

The campground is nothing to get too excited about, but the location right on the river is excellent. Also, this is the only campground we have ever stayed at that has free laundry. They have six really nice newer washers and dryers. We had not done laundry in a while, so took advantage of the empty laundry room and got all of our laundry done. Bonus!!

The laundry and bath building is quite a ways from the river. There is a sign on the second story of the building showing the crest of the river in May of 2011. You can see the sign on the left on the side of the building, and that’s our camper way down there by the river. It’s so hard to believe that the water came that far inland and that high. I sure never want to experience a flood.

When we got back from our sightseeing today, we saw this out of our window. On the left is one of the many barges. Some of them are huge. On the right is that riverboat we saw docked in Memphis. It came right past our back window.

Hmm, that might be kind of fun. I may have to look into doing a river cruise. Never mind, I just looked online. A seven day cruise on this ship to New Orleans is over $4,000 per person. I guess we’ll stick with the bigger ships.

We enjoyed our short visit to the Memphis area. The downtown area has been nicely restored and felt safe and clean. I would definitely recommend it as a place to explore.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!