Arts and Entertainment

I am often asked what my favorite ethnic food is. I’d have to say Vietnamese. It has a lot of fresh veggies and is never too spicy hot. My all-time favorite breakfast is pho, a Vietnamese soup served for breakfast and all day long. The light broth is full of flavor. On my last trip to Vietnam I learned about some other traditional foods on Pandaw’s Red River/Halong Bay cruise.

The Oswego Lighthouse, the icon of the city of Oswego, has basically been off limits to visitors until now. The breakwall that leads to the lighthouse is too dangerous to negotiate and, most likely, if reached by private boat the lighthouse will be closed. H. Lee White Maritime Museum now runs a tourist boat to the lighthouse twice a week for a mere $20 and includes admission to the H. Lee White Maritime Museum. John and I have been to the museum several times but each time is different.

Crazy Horse’s real name was “His-horse-is-crazy.” He was the leader of the Oglala Lakotas and led a group of likeminded Native Americans in a fight against the United States government protesting the government’s encroachments on their land and the effect it was having on the culture of the Lakota people. He and his followers finally surrendered to U.S. troops and Crazy Horse was imprisoned at Fort Robinson. On September 5, 1877, Crazy Horse was bayonetted to death by a guard who said he was trying to escape.

Heading south on Route 89 toward Alliance in Western Nebraska, what before my wondering eyes should appear? Carhenge rising out of the wheat fields! Carhenge is an assemblage of cars to look like Stonehenge built to scale and painted gray. Can’t make it to Stonehenge in England for the solar eclipse, then consider Carhenge.

“Go West, young man and grow with the country” wrote Horace Greeley in 1865 in the “New York Tribune.” He was encouraging Americans to take advantage of the Homestead Act whereby, in exchange for a small filing fee, settlers were given 160 acres of public land. People were already moving west. It was part of what some thought was America’s Manifest Destiny, the belief that the U.S. should reach from ocean to ocean.