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Group Photos
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Monday was Memorial Day. Since it was a school holiday, we had shifted our usual Friday-Sunday camping schedule back a day to allow more time on the first and last days of the trip to see the sights. Since it was Memorial Day (and a travel day to boot), we wore our uniforms. The trailer was just looking so pristine that morning that we just couldn’t resist getting a group shot in front of it.
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And so we did. There are better versions of this out there, but I don’t have any.
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On tap for the day was a trip to the Eisenhower National Historic Site to fill out the requirements for the Historic Trails Award. The site, consisting of the home and farm of General Dwight Eisenhower, was his retirement home, which he purchased in part due to its location adjoining the battlefield.
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But first we had to get there. Although we had packed up the site quicker than anticipated, we were unable to get earlier tickets for the bus ride over to the farm, which has no parking lot. So we had a little bit of time to wait around, which some of us spent looking around the museum. Others had seen enough of the museum before, and instead chose to practice some of their other talents. Here’s a video.
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Eisenhower National Historic Site
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But in practically no time at all, it was the appointed hour for us to mosey on down to the bus stop.
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We glanced at the provided brochures while waiting the last few minutes.
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The guys certainly seemed to enjoy the relatively plush accommodations of the bus.
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And so, 15 minutes later, we had reached the home.
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A NPS ranger gave us a rather comprehensive overview of the house and its history, then set us loose to tour the house and its associated grounds.
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The landscape nearby was quite flat and agrarian. The place is still an active farm to this day…
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…with a sizeable cattle operation.
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Here are some of the descendants of Ike’s prized black Angus show cattle.
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The NPS’ goal was to leave the farm just as it was when the Eisenhowers left the farm to them back in 1967. A testament to that was the gas pump shown here: the price gauge still reads 24.9 cents.
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But after making the rounds of the compound, it was time to board our bus back to the visitor’s center parking lot, before heading home.
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Departure
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The ride home was much quieter and (if possible) even more uneventful than the trip up. This picture should give you some idea why.
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