Saturday, November 29, 2008

Lewis & Clark in Nebraska City

I spent an afternoon in the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Nebraska city.
I'm a big Lewis & Clark freak. Particularly enamored of Sacagewea-and I've written about her before HERE. So I won't focus on her today.
Today, what struck me was all the work the expedition did beyond just making the trip.
The scientific research, the new animals, the surveying, the journals they kept.
All very interesting and impressive.
I took a bunch of pictures.

In a message to Congress, Jefferson wrote:
"The river Missouri, and Indians inhabiting it, are not as well known as rendered desirable by their connection with the Mississippi, and consequently with us. ... An intelligent officer, with ten or twelve chosen men ... might explore the whole line, even to the Western Ocean


Pointing the Way-Sculpture at the entrance
The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, and such principal stream of it as by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado or any other river may offer the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent for the purposes of commerce.[-Thomas Jefferson

Full sized replica of the keel boat. The keelboat, is 55 feet long and 8 feet wide

A model of it-inside


The Interpretive Center
Inside you'll also find a full-sized replica of a pirogue-the boat that went the farthest.
the White Pirogue is 32’ long and 8’ wide.
The second summer, traveling above Fort Mandan,
the white pirogue, considered the safer, more stable craft,
became the "queen of the fleet" on the upper Missouri.

You could read more about the pirogue...the Queen of the Fleet.


Enough medicine for two years!!!


Thomas Jefferson-who wanted the Louisiana Purchase explored and mapped,
but asked for so much more.





The famous map of Lewis and Clark's expedition. It changed mapping of northwest America by providing the first accurate depiction of the relationship of the sources of the Columbia and Missouri rivers, and the Rocky Mountains.



the Lewis and Clark expedition discovered 178 new plants and 122 new species of animals.

Including the grizzly bear--here's a bear claw necklace



Wolves


Elk - I don't think these were a new species to Lewis & Clark.

This was a big one






Among the animal species and subspecies previously unknown to science were the grizzly bear, the California condor, the coyote, the black-footed ferret, the black-billed magpie, the black-tailed prairie dog, the pronghorn, and the gray wolf. The two explorers left their names imprinted on two bird species, Lewis’s woodpecker and Clark’s nutcracker, and the scientific name for the westslope cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki lewisi). Among the plant species they described for science for the first time were the western red cedar, eastern cottonwood, red flowering currant, the mountain hemlock, the whitebark pine, Sitka spruce, Oregon grape, and the Pacific yew.

A trained naturalist, Lewis was especially noted for his meticulous observations and exacting measurements of new species. Perhaps more important for the future settlement of the West, Lewis and Clark returned with stories of the rich abundance of wildlife.















The

Friday, November 28, 2008

In honor of my niece



My niece,
Elisa Moore,
is serving her country bravely
in the Army
in Iraq this holiday season.
and
thank you to all the courageous
servicemen and women.
God bless you all
and
May God bless America.

BOOKSIGNING IN NEBRASKA CITY-NOV 29



I'M DOING a booksigning
at
The Book Clinic
Nebraska City, Nebraska
Saturday, November 29th
from
10 a.m. until noon.
I'd love to see anyone in that area stop in
BOOKS MAKE GREAT
CHRISTMAS GIFTS

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

FIRST CHAPTER CAVALCADE!!!

I JUST DICOVERED THIS
A CAVACADE
OF
FIRST CHAPTERS
OF
MY BOOKS

Friday, November 21, 2008

FIRST REVIEW OF GINGHAM MOUNTAIN



It's such a nice review
THANK YOU CHERRY BLOSSOM

High Tea at a GIRL'S BEST FRIEND

I had a girl's day out and we went to High Tea at the New Orleans Tea Room. It's in Omaha at a shop called A Girl's Best Friend at 4655 Leavenworth and Very fun.

The southern belles above are my daughter Josie--gonna make me a grandma one of these days soon. And her good friend Deb. We had a lesson on communicating with hand fans and right now, I'm not positive, but they might be subtly telling me to knock off the pictures so we can eat.



Note the crown on Josie's head. We got to designate a 'special guest' and I picked Josie because she's expecting...that makes you special, huh? Looking back, now that I've seen that cool fan, I wish I'd have chosen myself. It's even more true because now my daughter refuses to answer to anyone unless they called her Queen Josie....very annoying.





The Queen gets a very SPECIAL fan, too, feathery. And she could use it to whack people with, which was okay because it didn't hurt much...





This is my sister Linda. Sitting in front of a silver tea service...having quite a good time, if you'll notice. The tea pots and tray and cream and sugarer are so perfect and shiny and heavy you just can barely resist filling your tea cup over and over. But why resist? We guzzled tea like it was high octane and we were a bunch of Humvees...






Here's a close-up of the tea pots.



This is one of a hundred pretty little things A Girl's Best Friend sells. Besides these little tea delights, they have beautiful clothes. I wished I'd have gotten there earlier, before our reservation time, so I could have shopped more. The clothes are pretty, jackets and dressy pant suits, the kind of thing that you could wear anywhere, and have a bit of flash.
The store's motto--DARE TO BE REMARKABLE
I like that.Linda Smith with her husband Bob, owns and operates the shop. Linda worked as a chef for Al Pacino for years before coming to Omaha.

A Girl's Best Friend has, of course -- DIAMONDS
And lots of special jewelry and purses you just about can't leave without. And the shop had signs up all around for sale, and pretty touches everywhere.
This one...well, I messed up the hanging of the ribbon so maybe you can't read it.

I only drink to make people more interesting.



Don't Make Me Get the Flying Monkeys.

I think we've all had days like THIS.


And while you're sipping the wonderful tea and, we also had coffee, something mocha I think, this lady, whose name I failed to get (shame on me) gave us a demonstration on communicating with a hand fan.


We who were drinking tea got the subtle messages, supposedly to warn men off or lure them in. But we all know enough men to doubt seriously any man could catch the nuance.
But it was a different world when southern belles wandered about with Hand Fans
so who knows.
And if the fan doesn't do it, we got a lesson on --
What do all those genteel Southern expressions mean? And we were kindly asked to read them aloud, using our best Southern Belle voices, a prize goes to the most natural Southern Belle among us...I won. :)
These signs get bigger if you click on them.
Tacky Oh, my my

La, Dee Dah

Kiss My Grits
Shut my mouth
A Lady Always Knows When it's Time to Leave
And my personal favorite:
Bless her little heart
Gather a group, make sure you make reservations ahead and have High Tea at

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Petticoats & Pistols got a PERFECT SCORE



Petticoats And Pistols BLOGGY AWARD

We got a perfect score in their ratings system.

Posted Nov 16 2008 in Book Lover, Writer by Noemi
Petticoats And PistolsPetticoats And Pistols is the joint venture of a group of Western romance writers. They offer insights, info, and trivia on everything Western.
Visual Aesthetics - 10The visuals of Petticoats And Pistols is as Western as Western can get! From the brown color scheme to the photos and other graphics, you will certainly feel that Western ambiance. The posts themselves are scattered with relevant photos, giving you Western eye candy.
User Friendliness - 10Petticoats And Pistols is very well-organized and neat. The template makes use of two columns, the left one containing all the relevant links. From archives to categories to more info on the authors, you can find them all here. They even have links to their guest bloggers, making it easier for readers to find specific posts.
Reading Enjoyment - 10I am a big Western fan but although I am not really into Western romance novels, I found myself enjoying most of the posts, especially those which featured trivia such as Western terms. These bloggers are excellent writers and they know how to engage their readers.
Useful Info - 10If you ever need to do research on writing Westerns, then this blog is the place to visit. You can also find information on their work, which is especially useful if you are into reading Western romance novels.
Overall Experience - 10Petticoats And Pistols is an excellent resource in every respect. The authors not only use the power of words but combine visuals to provide the best experience to their readers. Highly recommended!
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Stuhr Museum-Grand Island, Nebraska

At the Stuhr Museum in Grand Island, Nebraska. An old, old, old car. did I mention it's OLD?


I love the log cabin farm place. The house, the barn, the fence-check out that fence. Seriously formidable, let those blasted bunnies try and get through there!


But the wild turkeys? How cool is that? They were just passin' through.


I love this fence. I'd never seen such a thing before. Did homesteaders really have fences like this? Unlike now, if a bunny ate your lettuce or a raccoon ate your sweet corn, you might STARVE so I suppose it WAS serious.



This is the barn. I didn't take a good enough picture here, but on the right there's an overhang-- a kind of porch roof, and under that were tools and barn-y kinda stuff so it must be a barn.





More turkey. More angles on the cabins. Love those log buildings.




A teepee. I'm not sure how authentic this is but the Stuhr Museum is trying to be very historically faithful so it's probably pretty good, huh?







This is an old buggy, probably pretty fancy for it's time, with red paint and black leather. Sadly, it's in better shape than the wreck I drive to work.



During summer hours all these buildings are staffed, so a man would be in this blacksmith shop uh...blacksmithing? Whatever that is? I know there's an anvil involved. Right?




A fair price. Please, buy a bath on occasion...I'm speaking to my forefathers. It's too late and I guess they thrived since ... HERE I AM. But still.........


I loved the look of this place. the wooden windmill, the red barn, the small grain bin...or is it a holding tank for water. I'll bet that's it. Then the house, which is in the background, would have water pressure. How GREEN is that? No electricity anywhere.


A closer shot of the farm place. House, barn, windmill




A bank. Why do I just feel this place waiting to be robbed? I'm a novelist, that's why. We need conflict, crime, trouble. Where's are story if everyone's getting along and being law abiding???
Some of these artifacts, buildings and details will definitely work their way into my books.