Road trip across the northern central part of the U.S.

Hey, I’m in NE (Omaha area).  I’m not historic or literature but you can hang out!  We can have Pollysoup and Rebekah come too!!!  We have one of the best zoos in the US.  The pioneers came through Council Bluffs and Omaha area.  There is a Mormon Trail Center that talks about the journey they made, has handcarts you can pull, a replica of a house and such.  Council Bluffs, just over the river, has a lot of pioneer stuff too.  My boys love the Air & Space Museum in Lincoln…tons of old planes and a hydrogen bomb and other plane history stuff. 

Have fun and be safe.  It sounds like a grand adventure!

I am excited for you! I would love to visit the Little House sites. Sounds like a great trip. Since you mention being in KY, I highly recommend going to the Creation Museum near Florence (In northern KY, very hear Cincinatti). Our family went last year and it was wonderful. I believe the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln is @ 50 miles SW from there.

Are you keeping a blog of your trip? I would love to read it!

Blessings!

Kristina

I second the Air and Space museum in Omaha; my kids still talk about it.  If you are going on I-80 through Iowa I have a great nature center visit for you near Des Moines.  There’s also a cool living history park near Des Moines.  LMK if you will be on that section of interstate and I can send you the websites of the places!  You’ll have to wave as you go by, although we are a good hour plus south of I-80.

Well, now… =) There is SO much to do!  If you are serious about visiting very many national parks, you should look into a season pass. It could save a lot of money. We’ve been to most of these places:

Wyoming:

Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Devil’s Tower, Crazy Horse Monument 

South Dakota:

Mt. Rushmore, Custer State Park, Jewel Cave, Wind Cave, Badlands, Deadwood, 1880s Town, Laura Ingalls in Desmet

Idaho:

Bear Lake, Craters of the Moon

Nebraska:

Pioneer Village in Mendon,

Pioneer Museum in Kearney is really cool,

pioneer place that crazy4boys mentioned will be awesome for teaching hands-on history (it’s so fun!)

Missouri (I live here, lol):

Kansas City Area: we haven’t explored this as much as we want to yet, but we have visited these places when we studied MO state history:

Thomas Hart Benson’s Home and Studio – he was an important MO artist. He painted scenes in our capitol from MO history, and he didn’t try to be politically correct. Some people wanted to paint over it, but cooler heads prevailed and now it is an important part of our history and State Capitol tour. He painted with tempera paints that had eggs in it to preserve the color.

Harry S. Truman Library – hands-on museum for children. Our kids loved it. Also has another mural by Thomas Hart Benton.

St.Louis Area

Mark Twain house in Hannibal, MO  – there are lots of places to see here

Lewis and Clark Boat Museum in St. Charles – the start of the Lewis and Clark trail at the fork of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers – we all really enjoy it!

First State Capitol of Missouri – down the street a block or two from the L&C Boathouse. Pretty cool.

St. Louis Zoo (free), huge, wonderful zoo!

St. Louis Art Museum (free and contains so many things from Egyptian mummies to examples of Middle Ages weapons to amazing furniture, art of all styles and eras – one of Degas’ Little Dancers is here, plus a French Impressionist room, to art from the Pacific Islands, etc…) 

The St. Louis Arch, of course!

All of these can be found along I-44 that run from St. Louis to Joplin – I included these because you said that you wanted to go the Laura Ingalls Wilder sites and they will be along the way (so to speak).

Purina Farms in Gray Summit (along I-44) It is free and has a museum, petting areas for cats and dogs, a dog show, tractor rides, and more.

Meramac Caverns in Stanton – great cave famous for the Jeese James gang and used in filming scenes for Tom Sawyer and Lassie.

Onondaga Cave in Leasburg – wonderful cave! My favorite of the MO caves I’ve visited

Meramec Springs in St. James – it is a beautiful place to visit. It contains an old iron works from the 1800’s (the Union took over it in the Civil War) and MANY of the items created (besides cannonballs) were things like plows, tools and other things that were required to settle the west. It has a museum, the old buildings and a driving trail, as well as a path around the actual spring…and trout fish raising ponds where you can feed the fish, as well as fishing from the river for those grown up trout…=) One of my all time favorite spots in Missouri. The nature study is awesome.

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield MO (via Lebanon) really interesting and fun. She wrote the books here.

If you keep going down I-44 after the Laura Ingalls Wilder visit:

Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield – the site of the first Civil War Battle in MO.

Fantastic Caverns in Springfield – you tour the cave in a truck they drive

George Washington Carver National Monument – nature trails, fantastic hands-on museum, cabins, Carver Family burial plot, etc.

On Highway 63 North going back to Kansas City after visiting Laura’s home:

State Capitol and Governor’s Mansion in Jefferson City – free tours of both places. They are beatiful. The capitol is especially beautiful – it is the 3rd one built (the other two burned down) and they decided to make it more permanent. They appropriated 4 million dollars to built it in 1917 and used MO granite. It only cost 3 million, so they used the other million to “decorate” – Thomas Hart Benton painted huge murals of MO history, they commisioned stunning stained glass windows in the Senate and House chambers…it is neat! 

Somewhere in here there is a birthplace for Walt Disney (can’t remember the name off-hand) and there is a Daniel Boone home to tour as well. 

PM me if you want any specific info.

We visited the Ingall’s homestead in DeSmet SD. There is much to see there. We also visited the cemetery there where many of the family are buried.