Lincoln, NE to Hastings NE
130 Miles
From Shoemaker’s Truck Stop in Lincoln, Route 6 is detoured onto Interstate 80 for about 20 miles (lots of roadwork going on across the country on this highway!), then rejoins its existing alignment in Milford, NE, and the Blue River State Recreation Area. This drive was scenic, undeveloped and otherworldly green; like cruising through Paul Bunyan’s Golf Course.
Pour House Friend, NE |
Pour House Friend, NE |
Entrance to Pour House Friend, NE |
Pour House Vintage Friend, NE |
Humus Plate at Pour House Friend, NE |
Pretty soon I came to the small town of Friend, where entrepreneur and screen-writer, Carrey Potter has set up a lovely wine-tasting bistro called Pour House within a slowly-being-restored Friend Opera House. The small town “Opera House” is a grandiose moniker for the factory-type building that served as a theater and gathering place for residents who craved culture on the Plains. Many of these Opera Houses across the Midwest are in decay, but Carrey is turning back the clock in little Friend, NE. She rents from the Friend Historical Society and is renovating in stages. Next door to the contemporary tasting room an event space called the San Carlo Room is booked until 2018 for High School graduation parties. Wildly popular Murder Mystery Dinners and of course the tasting room featuring nine Nebraska wines and others draw people from 100 miles away. In August, Carrey plans to open yet another Friend Opera House establishment – the Mary, Mary Quite Contrary Art Gallery. Carrey loves to play on words, reflected in the names of her house vintages; Betty White, Sknow White and Little Red Wrightinghood (which has a sweet snap a bit like a wine cooler). I enjoyed it along with a good, fresh Humus Platter (comes with olives, cut cucumbers, warm pita bread and tabuli salad) while taking advantage of Pour House’s free wi-fi. I found a friend in Friend.
I drove through several small towns; Exeter and Sutton (with a sign pointing to a “waterfowl production area,” and wondering whether they meant “protection.”)
As I approached my town for the evening, Hastings, NE, I began to see strange grass covered mounds that upon further inspection appeared to be bunkers. I’d heard about these, and learned later that Hastings was a Naval Ammunition Depot (NAD), and these bunkers stored bombs and small arms manufactured in town. The Government confiscated farmland five miles wide and 8 miles long in the 1940’s – and that “theft” is still a sore subject today among the farmers’ children and grandchildren. The camouflaged sod-covered bunkers are all that remain from that era, but they are still quite jarring to see.
Hastings Museum of Natural History Hastings, NE |
Kool Aid Exhibit Hastings Museum of Natural History Hastings, NE |
Hastings has one attraction worth popping into, if only to see an IMAX Movie or the largest dead animal display this side of the NY Museum of Natural History. The Hastings Museum of Natural and Cultural History and Planetarium is the stuck in 1955 time-warp kind of place I loved as a kid. Lots of rocks and minerals, taxidermy’d animal dioramas, what I discovered to be the “largest collection of mounted Whopping Cranes in the world,” and a hodge-podge of “grandma’s attic” stuff. But this is not why you should go out of your way to come. That would be; one - the High-School-History-Fair-quality Kool-Aid exhibit, showcasing everything you ever wanted to know about Edwin Perkins, the man whose mind dreamed up the famous “just add water and sugar” powered drink. Even though Kool-Aid was never made here, the fact that the idea for it was germinated in Perkin’s Mom’s kitchen in Hastings is a big deal to this town. Edwin Perkins was a mail-order and marketing genius of the highest order. He even came up with an early smoking cessation product called “Nix-O-Tine,” which sold like gangbusters in the early 1900’s. A man way before his time.
And 2 - The other reason to stop into the Hastings Museum is to pay your respects to its founder, Albert Brookings who is interred beneath the floor of the basement. He really loved and believed in this place!
blue moon coffee house hastings, ne |
Lana Waldron, Owner in Period Dress Grandma's House B&B Hastings, NE |
Guest Room, Grandma's House B&B Hastings, NE |
Assume they were taxidermied Whooping Cranes, not Whopping! Do the migrating whoopers still stop in Kansas to feed on their journey North/South?
ReplyDeleteWhen migrating north the Whooping Cranes stop in Grand Island and the vicinity along the Platte River.
ReplyDeleteKool-Aid was made in Hastings even though for only a short period of time. It was invented here in 1927 and moved in 1931 to Chicago for better distribution abilities.
ReplyDelete