Computer Crash, Wind Mills, and Pioneer Village

It's a real disaster when your computer dies during the first month of a four-month road trip. Carol's laptop had failed to power up on the day of our last blog, but Jack was finally able to get it going. But the next morning it was DOA. (This on top of our Verizon JetPack MiFi device dying just a week before--what's going on with our technology?!?) Fortunately, the Best Buy Geek Squad was nearby. They assessed the dead laptop and said it was surely dead, but they could get the data off the hard drive. (Whew, since Carol had not been overly conscientious about  backing up her work every day--she's been editing some technical books on this trip and had work in progress.)

We looked at the laptops offered by Best Buy and selected another Dell Inspiron laptop, the same type that died, because Carol is used to it and hates to change ANYTHING on her computer, ever. We bought the computer and arranged for the Geek Squad to get all the data off the broken laptop's hard drive and put it on the new one. It would be ready for pick up the next morning. BTW, we were in West Des Moines, a very clean and tidy city, from what we saw of it. We found a nearby Walmart Supercenter to stay overnight at (several other RVs were also spending the night in their parking lot). We had some time to kill, so decided to see the new Star Trek movie. We've been Star Trek aficionados since the days of the old TV show and have seen all the movies, so really wanted to see this one on the big screen. Enjoyed it. Very action-packed. The mall where the movie theater was located was GIGANTIC. We're not used to city malls anymore--we were a couple of rubes walking around with our jaws hanging open.

Carol's new Dell Laptop with i7 Intel processor, 12 GB RAM and 512 GB solid state drive. 

VERY FAST

Next morning we were up early and headed over to Best Buy, since Carol was chomping at the bit to get her new computer and make sure she hadn't lost any work due to the crash. We're impressed with this Best Buy. Both the salespeople and the Geek Squadders were knowledgeable and very helpful. We got a crash course on the new computer and verified that all the data from the other computer was there--yay! Then they let us sit there in the carrel for awhile and download a bunch of software that we needed using their fast connection. Life is good again.

Had lunch at a Whole Foods and got back on the road. We continued our plan of stopping at a rest stop every hour or so, to rest and walk a little. One of the Iowa rest stops was spectacular! Iowa has lots of windmills located in the middle of the corn and soybean fields, and this rest stop was apparently sponsored by the company that's installing the windmills. One of the windmill propeller blades was installed vertically so you could finally see how big these things really are. (BIG!!) The whole place had an energy theme, with beautiful color tiled walls displaying windmills in operation and lots of informative panels. Neat place! Plus you could see the real windmills operating from the rest stop parking lot.

A 145 ft long windmill propeller blade.

Carol at base of windmill propeller blade. Mind you, this is NOT the windmill body but just one of the 3 propeller blades stuck in the ground! The whole windmill is over 400 ft tall.

Nice description of windmills.

This rest area has some very cool tile work. This one shows the interior of the windmill electric generator. Note the technician inside near the hub. Not sure how he gets up there...

There are three tiled walls showing surrounding windmills.
An interesting note quotes a study which concluded there is enough wind power on the plains from Texas to North Dakota to provide 16 times the electrical power needs of the entire United States.

We crossed over into Nebraska and drove through Omaha (it was Sunday so not much traffic). We decided to stop at a motel with a good internet connection on the west side of Omaha, to download some more software (we're trying not to use up all our Verizon MiFi bandwidth) and let Carol play with the new computer some more, clean up the old stuff that doesn't need to be on there, etc. Had a comfortable quiet night at the Super8 and got to watch some of the Olympics for the first time.

Monday we got back on the road for real, heading for one of the stops that we'd planned, Harold Warp's Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska. Reading reviews of the place, we weren't sure what to expect, as most of the current reviews mention how rundown the place has gotten. Harold Warp was a successful businessman in the area, a son of pioneer parents. Back in the 1950s he started collecting all sorts of Americana that displayed technological progress from pioneer days till the present (the present being around 1980s, since it doesn't look like much has been added since then). This is an astounding collection of stuff, housed in 20+ buildings surrounded a tree-shaded grassy "village" square. He has an original Pony Express building, a pioneer sod house, an 1890s church (which still hold services every Sunday during the summer season), train station with steam train in it, an old merry-do-round, general store fully stocked, etc. etc. Plus massive buildings holding all kinds of vehicles from the earliest wagons to jets.

Conestoga Pioneer Wagon - outside view

Conestoga Wagon - inside view

A really old steam engine locomotive

Pioneer sod house. Very cool temperature inside on this hot day.

1884 Church still has church service every Sunday during the summer season.

The oldest Merry-go-Round.

Carol with multi-colored animals.

In another building he has kitchens, living rooms and bedrooms from all eras, from pioneer days to modern with authentic furniture (modern again being about 1980). Just about anything you can think of, Mr. Warp collected one (or more) of--musical instruments, glassware, printing presses, boats, sewing machines, refrigerators--anything you want to see the history of, you can probably find an example of it here! We only managed to see about a third of the collection, if that.

The 1830 kitchen display.

We stayed at the adjoining campground. The place is rundown. The original campground bathhouse is locked up and says "closed for renovation" and campers are told to use two old motel rooms adjoining the campground for a bathroom. (Actually it was nice to take a bath instead of a shower.) Their visitor numbers are way down and apparently the heirs of Mr. Warp don't want to spend their money to upgrade the place. So who knows how long it will stay open. It's definitely worth seeing though!! Mindblowing...

This morning we head for Wyoming--one of our favorite states!