May 9th

I made my way on a cold windy day across western Iowa. I have definitely said farewell to the tall mountains and rock formations of the West.

My first stop was the Danish farming town of Elk Horn. I took pictures of a windmill and “Grandmother’s House” and visited the Danish Immigration Museum, which showed a few dozen ( out of 300,000) individual stories of why people emigrated from Denmark to the United States in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Perhaps the most well known of these is Victor Borge – see pictures.

While driving, Jay and I had our annual birthday conference call with our mother Adele. Unfortunately, Roy couldn’t get a good signal to dial in while traveling from Sedona to the Grand Canyon.

Then I spent a few hours at the Living History Farms, walking through actual and recreated farms of the Ioway tribe in 1700, a pioneer farm of 1850 and a mechanized farm from 1900. Then a ride on a cart driven by a John Deere tractor to an 1875 village with a mansion and barn in their original location, surrounded by typical stores, a school and a church of that era.

I made it to Des Moines and saw the state’s historical museum, with an exhibit called “Iowa 101”. Finally, the Des Moines Art Center, which had an open house with a singer playing the guitar and food and drink (my dinner!). It’s mostly modern art (not my favorite genre) but the center’s architecture is very interesting – three interconnected buildings in completely different styles.

Today’s song is “River City”, the name of the fictional Iowa town that’s the setting for Meredith Willson’s musical “The Music Man”.

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