Contain your excitement

Today's route took us from Omaha, Nebraska to Ames, Iowa. We had to get accustomed to following our online Lincoln Highway route map and getting out of Omaha had us scratching our heads a bit. But we got underway and spent the day rambling between parts of the 1913 route and US route 30. Sometimes those are the same and sometimes they depart from one another. When the 1913 route isn't part of route 30 or in city limits, it often is gravel so we are not following it 100% simply because it is tiring and slow to drive on gravel surface. But when we see that there is a roadside attraction or marker that we want to investigate on the gravel portions, we take that route.

Here is what a typical road looks like:

And typical Lincoln Highway markers range from posts to more elaborate examples.

Gregory Corners

A bridge

A Lincoln bust

Signs to help us find the way

An example of an original marker

Besides spotting markers, we visited a couple of monuments and memorials today. We noticed a Lincoln Highway Veterans Monument in Crescent, Iowa so we stopped to view it. While there, Debby said, "I bet there is a geocache here." So I ran the geocache app and sure enough, there was. So we took time to find it. We also stopped by the Merle Hay memorial in Glidden. He was the first soldier from Iowa killed in WWII and one of three of the first US soldiers killed in WWII.

We stopped at Cronk's Cafe in Denison, a fixture since 1929 on the Lincoln Highway, for a piece of strawberry rhubarb pie. Yum!

I'm sure you're nearly breathless now from the report on this exciting day. But honestly, it was fairly perfect, roaming along, seeing the sights and admiring the beauty. Even the intersection that I had to turn around in 3 times before going the right direction...it's all good.