History of the High Plains

Before heading to Colorado this morning, we stopped by the High Plains Museum in Goodland.  It got a rave review on TripAdvisor and was also mentioned in the campground brochure. 

It was worth the stop.  The museum covered the high plains from the time of the dinosaurs, through pioneer settlement, the Dust Bowl years and into the 40's.  The fossils were really interesting, and were all found in western Nebraska.  They had mastodon teeth, a mammoth's tusk, and some other bones from early mammals.  We learned that 200 million years ago, part of Kansas was an ancient sea, and that about 100 miles east of Goodland, sharks teeth have been found as the land formations erode.

The exhibits on pioneer settlement and the Dust Bowl were also very interesting.  They showed what the inside and outside of a sod house looked like.  Sod houses were made out of bricks formed with mud and grass and were built into the ground so that from the outside, they looked very short.  They had dioramas of Goodland from its early settlement until the 1940's to show how the town progressed.

The museum curator was most proud of the model of the first patented helicopter on display.  It was built by two men from the area.  We pushed a button, and the blades of the helicopter (they looked like they were made of something like sailcloth) spun around.

After we finished touring the museum, we drove past the other Goodland tourist attraction - a giant reproduction of a Van Gogh sunflower painting on a huge easel.  The Goodland tourism magazine said this painting is one of many that will be located around the world.  Goodland was chos

en in the United States because farmers there grow tons of sunflowers to produce both sunflower seeds to eat and sunflower oil.  Apparently, in mid-August, fields are full of them.  I bet it's a beautiful sight.