As a child with an independent spirit and a bike (a green Schwinn with a white banana seat, white plastic basket with flowers on the front and streamers flying from the handlebars) some of my favorite memories involved pedaling a few blocks to the library in Clearwater, Kansas. It was a cozy place where I earnestly checked out volumes of a children’s encyclopedia and later Nancy Drew and Bobbsey twins mysteries. It’s where I found Farewell to Manzanar, my first introduction to the Japanese internment camps and the idea that I could learn something important by understanding the experiences of people of all backgrounds.

I’d fill my basket with books, proudly using my library card. I participated in summer reading challenges most summers and recall one season where the prizes were small illustrated cards describing tribes of Plains Indians that we laced together into a little book. My mom, sister and I sometimes would visit the much larger collection in downtown Wichita, where Mom worked at a nearby accounting firm. I so loved going with her to the multi-story building with windows overlooking downtown and filled with so much knowledge, so many ideas!

Even though I’ve visited Washington DC a number of times, I had never been to the Library of Congress. I knew of its collections and years ago researched ways to get prints of photographs taken by Dorothea Lange and others who made photos during the Depression and through the federal Works Progress Administration. One recent gorgeous fall day, I rode the Metro to the National Mall and then rented a Capital bike to pedal around the monuments. It was the perfect way to cover some miles and enjoy the views. As I docked the bike near the Smithsonian Metro stop, I saw a banner announcing the USDA’s farmer’s market. Among the produce, meats and eggs were many booths that offered prepared foods, and clearly it was a lunch destination for residents and tourists alike. I had one of the best crab cake sandwiches ever, sitting in the shade of a small tree near a tent set up with tables and chairs. Baskets held picnic blankets for people to roll out. Several diners tossed bean-bags in a corn hole game decorated with vegetables. After a scoop of plum sorbet made from local fruit, I was ready to go to the library.

Renting a Capital Bike offered a great way to see the monuments in DC.

I got another bike and pedaled to Capitol Hill. After docking the bike, I walked to the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, learned how to get a library card (called a reader identification card) and promptly wound my way through several lower levels to get to the registration area. A few minutes later, I had my laminated photo ID good for two years! I hadn’t come with a particular research agenda, so I wandered the incredible building, took photos, explored exhibits and then made my way back to the reading room with my card just to browse the stacks, pull a collection of feminist essays and find a lighted desk to sit a few minutes to read. I was filled with joy and humility to read in this temple of knowledge. I’ll have a list the next time I visit.

stunning architecture and mosaics honoring scholars of the past at the Library of Congress, Jefferson Building

After several days working in the studio during my residency at Cedar Point Biological Station, I was eager to pedal a few miles. I loaded my trusty commuter, Sage, onto the rack on the back of my van and drove over the Kingsley Dam into the state recreation area around Lake McConaughy. I pedaled along the lake road, grateful that much of the Independence Day crowd had left the area. It was a warm, windy morning and the route offered a few small climbs on the way to the LeMoyne entrance into the park. I enjoyed seeing blooming wildflowers, waving grasses and a single mule deer watching me from under a canopy of trees. After my ride, I drove around the Lake Ogallala state park, seeing a girl running to launch a rainbow-fish kite and watching the spray at the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District facility.

As I drove back toward Cedar Point, I turned to look around the Hilltop Inn property. As I was reading the marker noting the dates of the dam’s construction, I realized the view was very close to that of the Ogallala camera taking photos for the Platte Basin Timelapse project. As a longtime admirer of Michael Forsberg and Michael Farrell’s photography, videography and prairie advocacy, I was excited to know I was near a camera that was gathering images for this interesting compilation. I looked for the camera and found it. It felt like a celebrity sighting! I suppose it just shows what a geek I can be about the Great Plains.

Plaque at Kingsley Dam noting it was completed as a public works project in 1941 when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president. The view was familiar.

and there’s the camera, mounted on this tower, taking images for the Platte River Basin Timelapse project

On Saturday, I left Cedar Point and stopped in Kearney for lunch at Tru Cafe, strolled down a few blocks downtown and into the Museum of Nebraska Art to see the exhibit “A River Runs Through It.” For so many reasons, including my ongoing collaboration around river themes with Marcia Joffe-Bouska and Tom Quest, I was interested in seeing the exhibit. And what a treat it was to see photos by Michael Farrell as part of the main exhibit and an entire adjoining gallery devoted to the Platte Basin Timelapse project.

During a storm earlier in the week, Kearney saw intense rainfalls and resulting flooding. This year has been filled with stories of rivers overflowing their banks in Nebraska, and those images and ideas will certainly affect future art-making, although I’m not quite sure yet what shapes they will take. Look for some of those explorations in an expanded exhibit of “Rivers,” which will travel to Norfolk Arts Center in December and will be on display through February 2020.