California or Bust, Day 5 | Nebraska
At this point, I had bugs from, at least, five different states spattered across the front of my car, so we started the day with a trip to the car wash. As a young’un, I was TERRIFIED of going through the car wash, but I am happy to report that all parties handled it with much dignity.
It was another long day of driving, with not a ton of stuff to see. I imagine that the pioneers would have seen some prairie bison, but we were not as lucky. We did, however, make a stop at Fort Kearny. Fort Kearny was originally built to protect the emigrants heading west, but it also had roles in the Indian Wars, Pony Express, and protection of those who worked to build the transcontinental railroad. There were never any attacks on the fort, and it served its time mainly as a supply post.
In 1928, the Fort Kearny Memorial Association raised money to purchase 40 of the original acres and start rebuilding/restoring the site. The land was sold to the state of Nebraska, and became the Fort Kearny State Historical Park. It is staffed by volunteers, and they were some of the kindest, most informative park employees that we encountered on the trip (the other being at Fort Laramie). So far, funds have been raised to rebuild the carpentry and blacksmith shop, the powder magazine, and the stockade, but there are more than a dozen buildings still waiting to be brought back.
On the left, under the floorboards, is one of the original floor support posts from the magazine. They rebuilt the structures on the exact locations of their predecessors, using mostly the same materials as were originally used.
Insignia from some of the different units that were stationed at Fort Kearny.
Heading west once again, we pushed on to Ogallala, where we would be spending the night. Before we stopped, we paid a visit to our second, and last, landmark of the day.
California Hill was the first major grade faced by the emigrants. It was a climb of 240 feet in just over 1.5 miles. Our guidebook said that there were visible trail ruts going up the incline, but we tried to find them until the sun went down. I even got out and walked around a little bit, searching, but I had no luck finding them. On the plus side, I didn’t get eaten by cattle or coyotes.
