Day 4: Tuesday, May 6th
Council Bluffs – Two Museums & Two Bridges
According to my itinerary, we were going to go check out a couple of museums in
Council Bluffs. The Railswest Railroad Museum, and the historic Pottawattamie
County Jail.
BUT, looking at the city map we got when we checked into the RV Park, I noticed
the pedestrian bridge. I had seen photos of this bridge, sent to me by one of my
on-line exercise support group friends who used to live here. Now that I knew
where it was, I wanted to go walk over it. It crosses the Missouri River, so one end
of the bridge is in Iowa, and the other end is in Nebraska. Pretty cool, no?
So after breakfast, we drove to the parking area on the Iowa side. The bridge
doesn’t just go over the river in a straight line. It has serpentine curves at both
ends, which make it very eye catching. It also makes it longer. Ah ha! Here was a
chance to get some actual aerobic exercise, walking over the bridge. It did take
half an hour to get from the parking lot to the bridge, over the bridge and down to
the Nebraska end. But I was stopping pretty often to take photos, so I don’t think
it really counts as aerobic exercise. It’s REALLY hard to choose just one photo,
but I am going with this one:
May Pole
Those black and white lines which look like thread are steel cables about two
inches in diameter!
It was really windy, and we felt it more after getting off the bridge because it was
no longer at our backs. We ducked into a building just to get out of the wind for a
bit. Well. It was the Lewis and Clark National Historical Trail Headquarters and
Visitor Center. I had not made plans to see anything in Omaha, so didn’t even know
this was here. Most serendipitous. Of course we watched the video. We had been
to another Lewis & Clark center up in Montana, but I’d forgotten a lot of what we
learned there. It was very nice to have the information refreshed.
Going back over the bridge I did not take any photos, and it took 20 minutes to get
back to the van. Between the two walks I think I got some decent exercise.
From there we drove to the Railswest Railroad Museum. I picked this attraction
because it has HO model trains. I love watching model trains, and this one was as
fun as any I’ve seen. Outside it had actual train cars that we could check out.
So I have to share my color coordinated picture.
We ate lunch in the van, and then drove to the jail. Well, we tried to drive to the
jail. We had the address. We kept driving around and around (dealing with one
way streets) and could not see a jail. Nor a building with address numbers. Finally
we decided that the large Victorian style building (which looked like a home) had to
be it. It is. I guess I’ve never seen a jail built in the 1880’s before.
The reason I wanted to see this one is because it is called a Squirrel Cage jail. ? !?
Our guide book says “this unusual jail is a three-story revolving drum, divided into
ten pie-shaped cells on each level.” The jailor had to rotate the “drum” with a hand
crank in order to put a prisoner into a cell, or let him out. There was only one
opening and the cells had to be turned until they lined up with the opening. All I
can say is that the jailors must have been pretty strong men!
Look for the fake hand sticking out of the bars up at the top of the photo.
After that we went in search of a McDonald’s so we could have ice cream and I
could write postcards. And, OH MY! Just up the street from the McDonald’s was
another bridge with bridge art.
Red Chop Sticks
I am always going to think of Council Bluffs and the city with the bridges!
Tomorrow is another driving day. Heading to Des Moines.
Marilyn