Phaedra here: Well, we’re on the home stretch, now. Zoe told you that we were going to Nebraska to visit Mom’s former digs and that we did! The first stop was a little whistle stop named Lewellen. This is where Mom lived from the time she was 4 until she was 9 and they moved to Michigan.
Frankly, I don’t know why she wanted to “go back home” so much, but she and Dad had a great time in Nebraska.
Lewellen is a tiny, tiny berg of about 150 people, now, even though the sign coming in to town says 292. When Mom lived there she said it had 492 people! WOW!!! Anyway, the downtown has two blocks to it. People don’t parallel park there – they head in to the curb! Also, good thing that Zoe and I aren’t boys – no fire plugs, either. But, Mom remembered where everyone who was friends with her parents lived. She even met people who are living in those same homes, now. There sure are nice people in the west. She got to tour the high school where her
father taught band – it is being turned into a museum, now. No kidding!!! Plus it has this awesome slide out the back which mom said was the fire escape. She and her friends used to climb up inside the one on the grade school from the outside and use it as a slide in the summertime.
She learned that a friend of her folks, Mary Beard, left a trust to the town, and every year before school starts each school age child is invited to a picnic (along with her parents) and is given school supplies and a two-dollar bill to keep. Mom said that when she was in school, Mary gave everyone a Silver Dollar. Until about 20 years ago, she had a bank account holding her Silver Dollars (and birthday money from her childhood) in the Lewellen Bank (which is now headed by Mary Beard’s nephew). The swimming pool which Mary donated to the town is still open and being used, too!
They visited a place called Windlass Hill and nearby Ash Hollow, which is right on the Oregon
Trail that runs through the area. Conestoga wagons needed to be lowered by hand down this area because it was too steep for the horse teams. There was an original Sod House that had been built by a “great/great” of her family’s friends, the Clarys, around 1899. This place became a station along the Oregon Trail that helped to “refresh and repair” wagon trains of settlers on the way west.
Guess what:??? I might become a biker dog!!! Mom goes crazy
thinking about that, but in Lewellen where we camped there was a Biker Bash going on, too. Every night there was LOUD music from 8:00 pm until 1:00 am. I loved it!! It didn’t really bother Mom and Dad – the music was WAY louder than the bikes, too.
What did keep Dad awake all
night long, though, was the railroad that ran behind the campground. Every hour, two trains running east and west went by and shook our camper to high heavens. The morning we left, Dad counted the cars and each train had 133 cars filled with coal going east and who knows what going west. Mom had thought that there were at least 100 cars and I didn’t believe her. That’s a lot of cars!
The next day in Nebraska, we drove another 300 miles to the area where her father’s family homesteaded in the 1800’s. We camped at the Ord city park. There were 8 campsites situated next to a beautiful little lake which had a walking/bike path around it. Zoe and I walked there every morning with Dad while Mom slept in. She must think she is a princess or something!
You all know how shy Mom is, right? Well, she screwed up her courage and made plans to get
in touch with her long, lost family. She knew that one of her cousins was a doctor in Ord so they went to the public library to use WiFi and a phone book. Well, no luck in finding him until the librarian assistant asked her if she was finding what she needed. When she said she was having trouble finding a number for her cousin Bernie, the girl got a big smile on her face and asked if she wanted his home number. Then she whipped out her cell phone and said she was a good friend with his son! Well, this led to reconnecting with Bernie and his mom (whom my Mom’s Dad had taught English to when she was in high school), and Bernie’s son, too. Dad has been made an honorary member of the Keown (formerly MacKeown) clan. He feels very honored!
Mom took him to North Loup and they were invited to visit Mom’s Grandfather’s home. It hasn’t changed since she used to visit her grandparents when they lived there. Her grandmother lived in the house until she was 96 in 1989 and found it too difficult to tend to the upkeep of it. Imagine that! Pioneers, I guess!
They went to the cemetery where many of Mom’s “greats” are
buried and left flowers on the graves. They both felt good doing that… The church where Mom’s ancestors attended is right across the street from her grandparents’ home. Unfortunately, Mom and Dad weren’t able to visit the church. They’ll do that some other time, I guess! Once again, people in this small town were very friendly to the folks. Maybe when people have time and aren’t so “crowded” they can lend a hand to strangers.
Another place that they visited (and we had to stay home) was the Happy Jack Chalk Mine just east of Scotia (another bitty town where Mom lived before Lewellen). Mom’s father and she used to explore the mine/cave when she was growing up. It had changed a great deal, I guess. She was really surprised to find that it now has a “new” entrance and a tour that they needed to take to see the caves. When they visited Scotia, they saw a building that had been made with
chalk mined from the Happy Jack.
They, also, visited the high school where her father attended and played quarterback for the football team. It still is in use and is the high school for the whole Valley County.
After just 3 nights, we headed east toward home. Zoe and I will let you know how that looooong trip goes. Personally, I look forward to running in the back yard. That Zoe, though, doesn’t even remember the back yard. She was only 9 weeks old when we left home and now she’s almost as big as I am.
So long, y’all.
Phaedra over and out for now!
Smoky Mountain National Park is our last “official” stop before we arrive home. We drove three, hard, 400+ mile days to get here. Then, it’s back in the car, over the mountains, off to Cades Cove, up Clingman’s Dome Road and ALWAYS looking for animals! I ask you… what are we? Chopped Liver??? Oh, I know, sometimes Zoe and I think we’re princesses or people and we are. But we do have 4 legs just like bears and deer, right?
Anyway, we know why these mountains are called Smoky Mountains! When we went to Clingman’s Dome, we couldn’t even see the top of the mountain. The top was hidden by a cloud. Everything looks hazy, and it makes me blink and blink. I thought that we wouldn’t go very high here, but the folks figured out that we actually climbed as many feet as we did in Rocky Mountain National Park on the Trail Ridge Road. It’s just that it is 6000 feet lower and no tundra. Plus, no snow. We really wanted snow again before we hit the beaches.
We even got some R and R time outside the car in a river. Mom had a fit because both of us decided to drink the river water. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea – Zoe got a guppy tummy that night but was fine the next day.
Plus, we saw bears on four different times – a mother and 2 cubs, another mother and one cub, and two young cubs who seemed to be alone. Lucky for us, though, we were in our car. I saw on TV that a bear had attacked a man and his son plus chased the Ranger. The guys had planned to hike that same falls trail the next day, but it was heavily patrolled and closed to the public. Dad said that they had asked about bears at the visitor center the day it happened and had been assured that there was no problem at all. I’m glad they didn’t go!
Tomorrow we leave for Chapel Hill. We’ll see most of you there and hope that those of you that our folks met along the way will visit us in North Carolina. What a summer it has been! 
