Another foggy start to my last day in the Central time zone for about a month. But then the sun came out and I had a pleasant stroll around the Rolling Hills Zoo, which had a wider variety of animals than I would have expected to see in Salina Kansas. There was also an indoor exhibit called the Wildlife Museum that had dozens of dioramas of animals and their habitats from all parts of the world, complete with some real waterfalls and animated speaking figures (Native Americans, an Arab shopkeeper …). It was quite unique – see a couple pictures of it below.
Then I visited Dwight David Eisenhower’s boyhood home, museum, library and burial place in a chapel, in Abilene, Kansas. A film in the Visitor Center concentrated on the years 1940 to 1960, during which he ran the Allied army in Europe, NATO, Columbia University and – oh yes – the United States of America.
The second paragraph of the panel in the picture below confirms the roadside sign I saw in Missouri – his leading after WWI a convoy of military vehicles across the country on rough roads first gave him the idea of building the interstate highway system named after him. For us baby boomers, our parents and we after them were greatly benefited by the GI bill, loan programs for housing after the war and interstate highways – big ideas by which the government did great things to help tens of millions of Americans get ahead. Instead of the current gridlock and rolling back rights and progress, we need more of those big great ideas!
The song of the day is “Dust in the Wind”, by that rock group called Kansas.
The idea behind the interstate highway system 
Ike was one of 6 boys – he us the tall one third from the left 
The Eisenhower family home in Abilene Kansas 
Statue of General Eisenhower 
A diorama of caribou and black bears 
An African diorama around the Zambesi River 
Ostriches with their heads way above the sand 
A posing ring-tailed lemur 
A white rhinoceros 
I like the swan blending in behind the fountain 
A foggy farm
Mark's cross-country trip 