The zero in the title is for “no new information.” A bad way to end my first big series of travel blog posts. Today’s final day on the trail certainly didn’t go as planned. In fact, my interviews with two VERY accomplished Native American women didn’t GO anywhere, due to lack of planning on my…
It seems appropriate I would end my recreation of the Ponca Trail of Tears at the sites of Standing Bear’s imprisonment and trial in Omaha. While I have some last-minute connections to make tomorrow in Lincoln, this will be my last full day on the trail. Today I followed the Standing Bear saga to Fort…
Dark clouds frame the old building, shrouded by heavy, leafy trees, going to seed. As I entered the Susan La Flesche Picotte Memorial Hospital early Tuesday afternoon, the rooms were chillier than most and ghosts seemed to pace the halls. While some rooms have become alive with museum pieces like syringes, blood pressure gauges and…
One of the many reasons I’m on this adventure is to grow as a person. I’ve always had a problem with self-confidence and independence and since I’ve been married, it’s easy to allow my special husband to do the hard things for me. Making a trip of more than 2,000 miles without my favorite companion…
Today was a Monday. That’s it, a Monday. It started out great with my second-best friend at IHOP. I was able to say no to the pumpkin spice pancakes with cinnamon roll filling and cream cheese frosting. We gabbed for more than an hour and I was ready to roll. Without the cinnamon roll. Because…
My first book review for the Star-Herald was David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, 18 months ago. So, when I learned the Osage were a neighbor of the Ponca, along the Trail of Tears and cousins as part of five sister tribes that also included…
Sometimes you’re just in the right place at the right time and meet the right people. Such was my good fortune yesterday while touring the Marland Estates in Ponca City, Okla. The Marland’s Grand Home was not on my short list of places to stop on the Trail of Tears, questioning “What could a rich…
Memo: Photos appear on my business Facebook page, because I haven’t learned how to insert them here yet. Just another good reason to like Mary Wernke, Writer. The page, not me. For those who are counting, I’ve been traveling for seven days, but took Sunday off for family fun and yesterday to go camping/glamping off-the-grid,…
I’m in Oklahoma, so it’s to be expected, but today I met me some real cowboys and Indians. Oh, I know cowboys and Indians back home, but if you were to look up cowboy in a dictionary, there’d be a picture of Tony Coleman at the top of the page. Louis Headman is a Ponca…
Today was a big travel day for me, driving about 314 miles from Beatrice, Nebr. To Ponca City, Okla., completing the second leg of my journey to follow the Ponca tribe’s Trail of Tears from their home near Niobrara, Nebr. to this “Indian Territory” and the Bear Clan’s return home via Omaha. As I drove…
