On October 28th, we left Des Moines, Iowa and drove to Lincoln, Nebraska. We were actually driving all the way to Topeka, Kansas, through Lincoln, for a trip of 360 miles with two tours planned. We knew it would be a long day but Kevin had talked to Myers RV in Albuquerque about the refrigerator and had decided to try to get us back by 1 PM Friday to have them do a diagnostic on the frig to order parts if necessary. We were heading back to Albuquerque anyway, to arrive on Saturday the 31st for meetings and appointments we had on November 2 and 3. We just wanted Myers to be able to get the needed parts as soon as possible to complete repairs in order for us to get back on the road without much delay. We hoped to get started again by the 5th.
Arriving in Lincoln we drove straight to the capitol and were fortunate enough to park right across the street. We took a self-guided tour of the capitol because the next tour wasn’t for over an hour which we didn’t have. It was a very interesting looking capitol from the outside. It reminded us of a small skyscraper at just over 14 stories. We were only able to go on floors 1 and 2 and also to floor 14 where we were able to go out on the observation deck. Floors 3 through 13 are apparently offices. What was most interesting about this state capitol is that it is the only state in the country that has a unicameral legislature. Does anyone know what that is? We sure didn’t. Nebraska does not have the normal two legislative bodies – only one. They abolished their House of Representative long ago and now only have a Senate. It apparently is much more efficient and saves the state money.
After our tour we then drove on to Topeka, Kansas, another 175 miles, and were also able to park in front of the capitol with our big rig. That was very helpful to save time and almost never happens, especially twice in one day. Construction was taking place on the entire outside of the building. This was the 31st Capitol we visited and the first time construction of this magnitude was being done. We walked around the entire outside of the building until we finally found the one open entrance. We did not get to the capitol until 4:00 PM and we missed the last tour of the day. We were disappointed to hear that because the capitol allows people up into their dome and we had just missed their last tour. When the tour guide learned where we were from and what we were doing on our trip, he personally took us up to the dome. You have to understand that this trip up into the dome is like no other. They actually take you above the inner dome, in the attic basically, and then up some steel stairs that eventually spiral right into the outer dome and outside. It’s incredible and pretty scary too. We walked up all of the 296 steps that it took to get to the top and we then walked all around the outside of the observation deck. What a great view of the city we had from there. The height of the capitol is 314 feet – the third tallest in the country and 16 feet taller than the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Texas and Illinois State capitols are the other two capitols that are higher than 314 feet. This is only the third capitol that has allowed us to walk up to the top of the dome. We thought that was the greatest thing to be able to go up in the dome. As you walk up, there are people’s names all over the walls – as high as they have been able to reach to write them and even some really strange places where you wonder “how did they ever get up there.” We saw someone’s name with the year 1938 and a senator in 1952. We then toured the rest of capitol ourselves although a lot of it wasn’t accessible due to the construction. Even still it was a beautiful capitol. We then drove to a KOA Campground outside of town and stayed the night. It had been a long day but we were happy all had gone according to plan.
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