History Lessons

A thunderstorm rolled through in the middle of the night, but by the time we got up and going this morning, it was only a light rain. My aunt and uncle took us out for breakfast at a local pancake house -- J must have been hungry, because he downed 2 good-sized pancakes, an egg, bacon, *and* an order of hash browns! From there, the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site was practically around the corner.  

The NPS is housing the site in the former Monroe School, one of Topeka's four African-American elementary schools, which has been re-done to its appearance in 1954. The boys worked on their Jr. Ranger booklets, while we went through and looked at the exhibits, which we all thought were very well done. I knew about the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, but I didn't realize that there were 5 separate cases (from 4 states + D.C.) that had been consolidated under this one. What I also didn't realize was that it was the Brown ruling which helped pave the way towards the end of Jim Crow laws of segregation and begin the civil rights movement.

Before leaving Topeka, we also stopped by the Mulvane Art Museum at Washburn University, where a LEGO exhibit (The Art of the Brick by Nathan Sawaya) was on display...

Topiary pieces outside the museum

Hmmm, I bet we have enough LEGO at home to build our own art pieces...

After saying good-bye to my aunt and uncle, we were off to Abilene, KS and the Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum, a little more than an hour west.

Eisenhower's boyhood home

My husband is quite interested in all things World War II, so he enjoyed watching the movie about Ike in the visitor center, as well as going through the displays in the museum. I also learned a few new things, especially about the D-Day invasion at Normandy.

We like Ike!

From Abilene, all there was left to do was drive west on I-70 towards Colorado. Even though the road seemed quite flat, somehow we managed to gain more than 3000 feet in elevation by the time we crossed the border. I didn't make any hotel reservations ahead of time because I wasn't sure how far we would be able/willing to drive today. Five hours later (total driving time, although we got an hour back on the clock for crossing into the Mountain time zone), we pulled into Limon, CO only to find that there was no vacancy. Boo!

So, that meant another hour of driving on to Denver, where we had a room waiting for us (I called this time!) at the Drury Hotel near the airport. By this time it was raining pretty hard - thanks for driving, honey! This place had an indoor/outdoor pool, so the kids were happy. Free pop and popcorn in the lobby, too! Free breakfast and wi-fi, all of the criteria for a "good hotel" in the boys' opinion, so all's well that ends well!

Watching the late night news we saw footage of all the flooded streets in Denver from today's torrential rain. Yikes! Hopefully we'll be able to get out of town and up into the mountains tomorrow without any problems!