Today, I drive to Hastings, Nebraska, the city where I spent 12 of my most formative years. Yet, it’s also a city I have not visited in over 30 years. I have set aside the first full day for the Hastings Museum. This was a big museum when I was a kid, and I’ve heard that it has grown since then. The original building is a bit of an art deco specimen. Well the front side of the building is, anyway. Have a look:

There are three main things I remember from this museum that I am hoping to see again. When I arrive today, I first conduct a walkthrough to see what’s new, what’s unchanged, what I definitely want to see, and what I can skip over. Of the three things I hope remain, my walkthrough finds only one of them – the black light room with the glowing rocks. And it rocks!

I ended up staying from 10:15 AM to 6:15 PM (minus a walk across the street to Burger King for lunch), and I still didn’t even get close to seeing everything they’ve got. Like I said, it’s a big museum! As per usual, I didn’t take any photos inside the museum, but they’ve got a couple things outside that I got some pics of:

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The two items above are not displays. They are there to protect the museum in the event Kansas invades Nebraska.

I stopped by the gift shop on my way out, to see if they had any books on the railroad history of Hastings. They did not, but they told me the local Walgreen’s (of all places) has a good selection of local history books. I went to Walgreen’s and, lo and/or behold, the folks at the museum gift shop were right! I ended up buying these:

Given that I’ve mentioned Taco John’s for the last two days, I decided I would go there for dinner tonight. I had a pair of taco burgers and a large order of Potato Oles. The taco burgers were even better than I remembered. As for the Potato Oles: I found them to be just as good as (but identical to) the Potato Oles at Taco John’s.

Day 4: And on the fourth day, the Cedric rested.