OK, I have to warn you right now that this is a very long chapter so don't start until you have a few minutes of spare time. There are lots of pictures so you won't have to read too much.
After leaving the I-80 Arch, we continued eastbound to the next overnight's stay, this time at a Walmart parking lot.
We found this Walmart using our "ONP Walmart" App.
ONP stands for Overnight Parking and this App tells you where every Walmart in the country is located with a great map that shows where you are as well as directions to all of the Walmart's.
The App also tells you whether the Walmart allows overnight parking for RV's. If the "W" symbol is yellow, the store might allow overnight parking. You can then look at a detailed description of the store you are interested in and get address, phone number and other info.
We heard that Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart liked to travel in a motorhome and suggested to his stores that he wouldn't mind if RV's were allowed to stay in Walmart parking lots, as long as they didn't interfere with business or get out of hand.
We heard that Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart liked to travel in a motorhome and suggested to his stores that he wouldn't mind if RV's were allowed to stay in Walmart parking lots, as long as they didn't interfere with business or get out of hand.
Many Walmart's still allow you to stay on their properties, but some don't for various reasons, including city ordinances that prohibit overnight camping.
The next day we continued our travel eastbound and stopped for lunch at a Dairy Queen because it had a great big parking area next to the restaurant where it was easy to park our motorhome.
We were the only customers in the restaurant when we got there. As we were eating our lunch, another couple came into the restaurant and sat down in a booth near us.
They asked us if we were driving the big motorhome outside and we said yes. They said they had parked next to us because they are towing a very large boat and trailer.
We introduced ourselves and they asked where we were headed. When they heard we were going eastbound and had never been that way on I-80 before, they asked us if we were going to visit the town of Minden, Nebraska. We said we had not planned on it unless it was along the Interstate 80.
They said Minden was south of I-80 about 12 miles but that we HAD to go there to visit the "Pioneer Village". We told them we had never heard of the Pioneer Village and so they told us about this amazing museum out in the middle of nowhere in Minden.
Once we were back on the road, Suzie started researching Pioneer Village and then we set our sights on Minden for our next stop.
Suzie's research showed that there was an interesting museum there and that there was an RV park at the museum and if you stayed one night, you got one free admission ticket to the museum.
When we got to the town of Minden, we immediately found Pioneer Village, which is right in the middle of the small town.
We registered at the RV/Motel office and got our free ticket. Then we set up in our campsite and headed off to dinner, planning to go to the museum first thing in the morning.
After dinner, we headed home in a light rain. Just after we went to bed, our emergency radio went off.
When we travel in tornado country, we always turn on our weather radio which has an alarm function that allows the radio to quietly monitor the local National Weather Service radio frequency and only turn on if the Weather Service broadcasts an emergency alert for dangerous weather.
The radio makes a LOUD screeching siren like noise that will wake the dead.
We woke up and could hear rain POUNDING on the roof. The radio was giving us a message that the potential for a tornado in our area was happening right now and that we should seek shelter immediately.
We used our smart phones to look at the real time radar. We were at the blue dot.
We were able to watch the moving map and see that the really dense red area was going to move northeast away from us so we just went to the front seats of the motorhome and watched a great lightning show.
The storm lasted about 1 hour and then all quiet and we went back to bed.
The next morning we were at the front door right when they opened.
We had read a tourist brochure that said the Village covered 20 acres and consisted of 28 buildings. We figured we were in for a long day.
The sign over the entrance explained that the displays were arranged in the order of their development and that proved very helpful as we viewed each of the buildings. The displays started with the items that were first developed and then had examples of subsequent models as they were refined and improved.
When we first entered, we began the self guided tour at a transportation exhibit. It was instantly visually overwhelming.
This was just the front part of the first building and Suzie was going nuts taking pictures of each vehicle. They were all beautifully restored in beautiful original condition and the lady at the ticket booth told us that ALL of the vehicles run.
We finally realized that if we ever wanted to leave Minden, Nebraska, we would have to stop reading each of the individual descriptions of each vehicle or exhibit, and start moving a little faster.
We continued to walk and photograph and I am just going to let you go through some of the photos.
Aircraft and aircraft engines
Watches and clocks and lamps
Traveling salesman
Wheelchair development
Outboard motors and boats
Folding boat
Fire apparatus
The amazing thing is that all of the previous pictures were just a small portion of what was in the first building.
It was overwhelming and we still had 27 buildings to go!
After leaving the first building, we walked into a central park like area that the rest of the buildings were built around.
We then visited each building.
The store was packed with items from the past. There was just too much to see.
Scattered throughout the entire museum were small signs that related sayings that Harold Warp, the museums founder found important.
Pioneer cabin
Sod House
Land Office where homesteads were filed.
When Harold Warp decided to build Pioneer Village, he began to acquire historically significant buildings from around the Plains. He then had them moved to Pioneer Village and these are the original structures we are seeing today.
Foot powered milking machine
The Hobby Building had all kinds of collections including a huge collection of salt and pepper shakers, buttons, and ball point pens.
The pen collection was huge and covered 2 entire walls.
Then there was a pencil collection that covered an entire wall.
The schoolhouse that Harold Warp went to as a child was moved to Pioneer Village.
At this point, we weren't even halfway through so we got our hands stamped and headed to lunch.
When we got back, we started on the big metal warehouse size buildings. They were crammed onto the property and were so big there was no good way to get back far enough from them to take a picture but we were able to take one picture along the outside showing how long the buildings were.
The buildings were almost as wide as they were long.
Inside the buildings were more amazing collections. There was farm machinery and tractors.
All of the equipment, tractors and other mechanical equipment was in operating condition.
This picture shows how the harvester behind Suzie was operated.
Each of these buildings held a very large number of exhibits on the ground floor and they all had a second floor that were just as crowded.
Don't forget the rows and rows of stationary engines.
This was the snow machine exhibit on the second floor of one of the buildings.
Remember that each display was set up to show the development of a product from old to new. This meant there were huge car barns, each 2 story and packed with cars.
Notice that this 2 rows of cars only take up 1/2 of the total floor space and a similar display appears to the left of the line of Plymouths. There were A LOT of cars.
We could hardly walk by the time we finished with the cars but we still had a long way to go.
The next few buildings contained collections of home furnishings, appliances, china and glassware, and musical instruments.
When we see special items like these porcelain pieces, we can contact our friends at Posh Pawn in San Diego and they can somehow come up with $$$ values for them.
http://poshpawn.com/poshpawn.com
Check out the price!
Every kind of washing machine imaginable.
Great collection of "Monkey Wrenches".
The displays just went on and on.
Then we got to the building that demonstrated the evolution of our lifestyles through the years by showing dioramas of homes.
1910 Kitchen
1930 kitchen
1950 kitchen
1980 Kitchen
Home furnishings building, 2nd floor
When we got to the town of Minden, we immediately found Pioneer Village, which is right in the middle of the small town.
We registered at the RV/Motel office and got our free ticket. Then we set up in our campsite and headed off to dinner, planning to go to the museum first thing in the morning.
After dinner, we headed home in a light rain. Just after we went to bed, our emergency radio went off.
When we travel in tornado country, we always turn on our weather radio which has an alarm function that allows the radio to quietly monitor the local National Weather Service radio frequency and only turn on if the Weather Service broadcasts an emergency alert for dangerous weather.
The radio makes a LOUD screeching siren like noise that will wake the dead.
We woke up and could hear rain POUNDING on the roof. The radio was giving us a message that the potential for a tornado in our area was happening right now and that we should seek shelter immediately.
We used our smart phones to look at the real time radar. We were at the blue dot.
We were able to watch the moving map and see that the really dense red area was going to move northeast away from us so we just went to the front seats of the motorhome and watched a great lightning show.
The storm lasted about 1 hour and then all quiet and we went back to bed.
The next morning we were at the front door right when they opened.
We had read a tourist brochure that said the Village covered 20 acres and consisted of 28 buildings. We figured we were in for a long day.
The sign over the entrance explained that the displays were arranged in the order of their development and that proved very helpful as we viewed each of the buildings. The displays started with the items that were first developed and then had examples of subsequent models as they were refined and improved.
When we first entered, we began the self guided tour at a transportation exhibit. It was instantly visually overwhelming.
This was just the front part of the first building and Suzie was going nuts taking pictures of each vehicle. They were all beautifully restored in beautiful original condition and the lady at the ticket booth told us that ALL of the vehicles run.
We finally realized that if we ever wanted to leave Minden, Nebraska, we would have to stop reading each of the individual descriptions of each vehicle or exhibit, and start moving a little faster.
We continued to walk and photograph and I am just going to let you go through some of the photos.
Aircraft and aircraft engines
Watches and clocks and lamps
Traveling salesman
Wheelchair development
Outboard motors and boats
Folding boat
Fire apparatus
The amazing thing is that all of the previous pictures were just a small portion of what was in the first building.
It was overwhelming and we still had 27 buildings to go!
After leaving the first building, we walked into a central park like area that the rest of the buildings were built around.
We then visited each building.
The store was packed with items from the past. There was just too much to see.
Scattered throughout the entire museum were small signs that related sayings that Harold Warp, the museums founder found important.
Pioneer cabin
Sod House
Land Office where homesteads were filed.
When Harold Warp decided to build Pioneer Village, he began to acquire historically significant buildings from around the Plains. He then had them moved to Pioneer Village and these are the original structures we are seeing today.
Foot powered milking machine
The Hobby Building had all kinds of collections including a huge collection of salt and pepper shakers, buttons, and ball point pens.
The pen collection was huge and covered 2 entire walls.
Then there was a pencil collection that covered an entire wall.
The schoolhouse that Harold Warp went to as a child was moved to Pioneer Village.
At this point, we weren't even halfway through so we got our hands stamped and headed to lunch.
When we got back, we started on the big metal warehouse size buildings. They were crammed onto the property and were so big there was no good way to get back far enough from them to take a picture but we were able to take one picture along the outside showing how long the buildings were.
The buildings were almost as wide as they were long.
Inside the buildings were more amazing collections. There was farm machinery and tractors.
All of the equipment, tractors and other mechanical equipment was in operating condition.
This picture shows how the harvester behind Suzie was operated.
Each of these buildings held a very large number of exhibits on the ground floor and they all had a second floor that were just as crowded.
Don't forget the rows and rows of stationary engines.
This was the snow machine exhibit on the second floor of one of the buildings.
Remember that each display was set up to show the development of a product from old to new. This meant there were huge car barns, each 2 story and packed with cars.
Notice that this 2 rows of cars only take up 1/2 of the total floor space and a similar display appears to the left of the line of Plymouths. There were A LOT of cars.
We could hardly walk by the time we finished with the cars but we still had a long way to go.
The next few buildings contained collections of home furnishings, appliances, china and glassware, and musical instruments.
When we see special items like these porcelain pieces, we can contact our friends at Posh Pawn in San Diego and they can somehow come up with $$$ values for them.
http://poshpawn.com/poshpawn.com
Check out the price!
Every kind of washing machine imaginable.
Great collection of "Monkey Wrenches".
The displays just went on and on.
Then we got to the building that demonstrated the evolution of our lifestyles through the years by showing dioramas of homes.
1910 Kitchen
1930 kitchen
1950 kitchen
1980 Kitchen
Home furnishings building, 2nd floor
I finally found a picture that does not require an explanation
Old Pony Express station
Don't forget the trains!!
Hand powered track inspection car.
Wooden cow catcher
We are at the end because I am almost as tired putting this together as I was the day we were there on our feet from 9:00 AM until almost 5:00 PM with a quick lunch break.
This whole museum was brought to us by Harold Warp. Here is his story. It tells about how he made his fortune in plastic.
OK, you made it to the end!!! We could hardly walk back to our motorhome when it was over.
My fingers have turned to bloody stumps typing this so I hope you know that the reason I have done this is to show you that there are some amazing things hidden out there off the beaten path so get out there and find some . . . . . and I hope you will share your finds.
More to come soon,
Tom & Suzie
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