Adventures Along the Highway

Last Friday I drove from St. Paul to Lincoln, Nebraska. The weather was rather blah, so it was nice to find something once in awhile along the highway. I had slept later than I had planned before starting this trip. My first plan had been to have a breakfast of melon and muffin before leaving. However, I had left the muffin in the car after buying it the previous evening. I sliced up the melon and did munch on it while driving, but knew the muffin required a stop.

My first stop was a park only rest stop in northern Iowa. This means one can park there for a bit, but there are no facilities such as toilets at this rest stop. My view out the window while munching on the muffin looked so desolate.

After driving another 35 miles or so I arrived at a rest stop that did have "facilities." I like the rest stops in Iowa because each one of them is a history lesson. This particular stop was at a place where I've never stopped before in my travels. This one has what is called replicated fixtures from the Soldiers Memorial Hall in nearby Hampton, Iowa. This Memorial Hall particularly is to keep a remembrance of the soldiers from Franklin County Iowa who fought in the battle called Pleasant Hill in Louisiana near the end of the Civil War. 

A visit to Wikipedia and other web sites reveals this Soldiers War Memorial Hall is one of three in the United States. The real building remains in Hampton and has been on the National Historic Register since 1991. (A funny historic memory -- one of the friends I came to visit lived in Hampton as a child and remembers being tripped in this building and breaking a tooth!)

At the rest stop one finds a tile mosaic on the entrance that depicts how the American eagle was depicted in the middle of the 19th century

On each side of the interior walls there are other mosaic tile displays.

The above is for the Union Army. The one below depicts the Confederate Army.

Bordering both of these mosaics are a great number of tiles each with some words etched into the tile.

For my international readers -- Jefferson Davis was the President of the Confederate States.

On the Union side of the hallway I found the above tile.

The exterior walls of the building also have tiles.

The GAR stands for the Grand Army of the Republic which was another way to designate the Union Army.

I will close this blog entry with the tile below.