August 2, 2007 – Kansas City to Lincoln, Nebraska

Couple of surprises today..First, I hadn’t really looked closely at the interstates to observe that we wouldn’t be driving into the state of Kansas at all. Instead, we drove through Iowa for 15 miles. With the trusty GPS I don’t really spend much time with a map. I tend to just look at the route that day using the GPS. An addition to the first surprise was that the trip wasn’t 4 hours but only 3.5. That last half hour is helpful, trust me. Little Bailey doesn’t like her car seat so much anymore after about 2 hours. The second surprise is has to do with what we did in Lincoln. As I have mentioned in the past, Sheri’s great grandfather was a state representative in the Nebraska state legislature. We had planned on going to the state historical society to look at some documents from the 1920s and 30s. The pleasant surprise was just how helpful the lady was at finding information for us. We came home with copies of pictures of Great Grandpa Heater and other interesting stuff from that era. The third surprise was that G.G. Heater was present when Nebraska switched from a bicameral legislature to a unicameral legislature. Nebraska is the only state with a unicameral legislature. I knew that part, but I was under the false impression it was always that way. We got a copy of the official vote tally when they made the switch. We wrapped the day up by spending an hour in the children’s museum (right next to the state historical society) and then a surprise trip to Arby’s (Brandon and Seth’s favorite place to eat). Seth continues to out eat me at mealtime. He sometimes consumes twice as much food as I do. The next two days will be spent in Nebraska. We hope to see the town that GG Heater lived in and the cemetery where many of Sheri’s distant relatives are buried.