Agate Fossil Beds National Monument is out in the middle of the prairie many miles from any sizable city, in fact the closest town is Harrison, Nebraska 25 miles to the north, a community of less than three hundred people. What was once the Agate Springs Ranch, it’s the site of some incredible paleontological finds of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. We knew it was rich in fossils, but we didn’t expect a wonderful collection of Native American artifacts that were gifts to James H. Cook from Chief Red Cloud and other members of the Lakota. The cross cultural respect reflected in this collection is profound!
Aboard the Norwegian Jewel we’ve made stops in Cozumel, Mexico and Georgetown, Grand Cayman to explore beyond our previous experiences here. Soon we’ll be making our way to ports we’ve not yet explored in the Southern Caribbean.
What a treat to pause for a BBQ lunch with the locals at Pearl Country Store and Barbecue on US-441 in Micanopy, Florida. It’s a taste of the Florida we remeber from our youth.
By deliberate choice we were in Medina for all the winter holiday festivities from Candlelight Walk in the days before Thanksgiving through A Christmas Carol and A Celtic Christmas as well as an Alex Bevan Concert and a historic house tour all the way through Medina’s 31st Ice Festival but perhaps the highlight was the town hosting hundreds of folks whose homes and lives were devasted by Hurricane Helene at the A Promise of Christmas Event the middle of January. It’s an honor to be a part of this amazing community!
An article from 2018 gives a nice overview of the collection of artifacts from the Cook – Red Cloud friendship: https://www.starherald.com/news/local_news/agate-display-gives-insight-into-a-friendship-across-the-ages/article_90b1a972-eb4d-52f3-bfc5-6fb475a2c5e7.html