Take a good look at Essie Garrett. Fifty-seven years old, dreadlocks down to her ankles, sleeping on the roadside at night. Some people might see an oddball.
I see a hero.
What else would you call someone who devotes her life to helping other people?
 59 Year Old Denver resident, Essie Garrett is running 1,079 miles from Denver,Colorado to Chicago, Illinois in order to raise $100,00 for three local nonprofit organizations.
Essie is running from Denver to Chicago this month to raise money for three Colorado charities. If she stays on schedule she'll cover about 35 miles a day for a month.
Essie's adventure makes my 20-miles-day walk seem like a morning stroll through an English tea garden. Just thinking about running 35 miles makes my feet hurt.
Oh, did I mention she's doing it on crutches? Essie injured her leg early in the journey. Most people would have quit, but Essie just hobbles along. It just takes longer.
"There's a lot of pain, but I take comfort in knowing that what I'm doing is helping others," Essie said when we met her, by chance, in McCook, Nebraska.
When she starts her day - at 3 a.m. - Essie focuses on the good things, like the war veterans who gave her the crutches and the wonder of the wee morning hours.
"That's my favorite time. It's so still and peaceful," she said.
It's been almost 20 years since the former Denver teacher began doing 48-hour runs around the Colorado state capital to feed the homeless. Then she did longer runs including Atlanta to Denver, Denver to San Francisco (and back), and Omaha to Denver, among others
"I try to do one a year," she said.
This year, she's running for the Emily Griffith Opportunity School in Denver, the Sacred Heart House in Denver for homeless for women and children and the Colorado AIDS Project.
Essie said many black and Hispanic women turn a deaf ear when the subject of AIDS comes up. She knows, because that's exactly what she did until an organizer shamed her into running for AIDS several years ago.
"This disease recognizes no age, no color, no financial status. It's higher now in the black community. But they're in total denial," she said.
In fact, blacks shunned Essie in her first AIDS run. That only convinced her to make AIDS her special cause.
"I'm hoping we raise enough money to have little areas where we can talk honestly. People have to be accountable," she said.
And she's trying to prod people to be involved in the world around them.
She grew up in a small Southern town - where everyone pitched in.
"Today, I see us being about "me". I don't know how it happened or when it happened, but we've got our Starbucks and our cell phones and we're separating ourselves from each other," she said.
Essie and her driver, Clinton Classman (one of her former pupils), usually sleep on roadside and eat on the run. A night in a hotel is a luxury for them.
Every so often on this journey, people pat me on the back and say something like "Wow, aren't you a terrific person."
Naturally, I agree with them. But life has a way of putting us in our place.
I guess you could call Essie my place-setter.
Essie expects to arrive in Chicago Sept. 10 and hopes to sit in the audience of her hero, Oprah Winfrey. For information about Essie's run, or to contribute to any of the three organizations contact the Emily Griffith Foundation.
TIME WARP
There's a science fiction movie where a giant robot travels around the universe collecting specimens of everything: one planet, one moon, one human, one zebra, one marshmallow, etc.
Sort of like Noah - and Harold Warp.
You could say Harold is the king of collectors. If you need proof, just visit Pioneer Village, Harold's incredible collection of just about anything that tells the story of American life from the mid 1800s to the late 1900s.
There are more than 50,000 items in 30 buildings.
 Antique automobiles & planes are displayed Harold Warp's Pioneer Village in Minden, NE. Over 50,000 items from every field of human endeavor are displayed in a chronological progress of how America grew.
Do you like cars? Check out the evolution of transportation from carriages to Corvettes. Look at more than 300 antique cars and you'll see an incredible amount of experimentation, from tires, to trunks to engines. You can find a steam-powered car, one with wooden wheels, and three-wheeled cars.
That's in one area. There are two more buildings of cars including more than 70 Fords and Chevys in the order of their development.
Want to trace the evolution of flight? You can find replicas and actual planes dating back to the earliest flying days, when planes were little more than tricycles with wings. You'll see early helicopters, ultra lights and space gear.
And that's just a hint of what's in Warp's monument to Americana.
"We have a washing machine that was operated by dog running on a treadmill - now that man really hated to do laundry," said Marshall Nelson, the village's general manager. Warp created a foundation to run the museum before he died a decade ago.
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The museum includes the original Elm Creek fort (it's tiny but it housed five families for two years) and a sod house from pioneer days, and a Pony Express Station. Warp bought many of these buildings when they were scheduled for destruction.
There's a carousel dating back to 1879. It's the oldest steam carousel in operation - and it still costs five cents a ride.
 People that visit Harold Warp's Pioneer Village in Minden, NE can ride a steam powered Merry-go-Round for 5 cents.
Ten-year-old Kaitlynn Long rode the carousel more than a half dozen times.
"It was my favorite," she said.
Caitlin's father, Berry Long, was more interested in how everything at the museum seemed to fit into place.
"It shows how America was built," he said.
That's the way Warp wanted it. He waned to show the evolution of technology. And Warp was part of that evolution. He made a fortune in plastics, rising from poverty in the Minden. He invented flexi glass, Jiffy bags and Jiffy wrap. He claimed he invented the plastics industry - and no one disputed that.
Many of the exhibits are in chronological order. You can see communication advances from the quill pen to the cell phone.
There are seven generations of typical living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms. There's a hospital room with an iron lung, a scary old dentist's office and an even scarier old beauty salon with those electric curling machines that look like torture devices.
There's old Doc Hapeman's Office. Harold bought it when Hapeman retired in 1947 after more than 50 years as a country doctor in Minden. In the corner, you'll see Hapeman's house-call kit that included a horse whip, snow shovel and wire cutters (to get through fences.)
There are huge collections of pens, toys and trinkets. There's a building dedicated to old iceboxes. And a section of another building dedicated to old washing machines.
It's amazing to see how these industries started and how they refined the products over the decades.
Nelson said many people make return visits, brining their children and later their grandchildren.
Jim Koop of Wallace, Neb said he's been to Pioneer Village twice.
"It's and awesome place. My grandson points to things and asks me what they are," he said.
To get more information about Pioneer Village visit: www.pioneervillage.org.
HILL COUNTRY
People have been telling us for quite a while that Nebraska is flat as a pancake. Well, their pancakes must be pretty darn lumpy.
We encountered hills throughout our journey through the state, but none more striking that the countryside west of McCook.
Near Culbertson the rolling pastel green hills reminded me of northern Pennsylvania in the Appalachian foothills. The hills here are farther apart, of course, and are irrigation pipes everywhere.
Nebraska sits atop the largest underground reservoir in North America.
Dubbed the Little Grand Canyon by Southwest Nebraska residents, this spot was created in order to enjoy the view of the hilly bluffs which become very prominent as you enter western side of the state.
Farther west you can visit what folks call the Little Grand Canyon. From the east ridge (old Route 6 through Wauneta) you see the sharp edges of canyons and land pockmarked dents that look like meteor craters. Some of the larger, longer dents might be the start of new canyons.
From the west (Route 6), you look out over green carpet of grass over rolling hills dotted with brush, cows, horses and a few stands of trees.
CATTLE DRIVE
On Route 6 near Little Grand Canyon I heard the bellowing of cows on he south side of the road.
I looked over and saw a herd standing near a wire fence. In the distance, three cowhands rode down the hill on horses. They drove the cattle behind a hill and I moved on.
A few minutes later, I heard the cows again, but this time much closer. The cowhands were herding them down the roadside. Well, there were 180 head of Angus and it didn't take long before they pretty much owned the road. Cars and trucks waited or cautiously shared the road while the cowpokes herded the animals a mile or so down to the Circle K Ranch. I scooted behind a guard rail as the cattle thundered past at a trot. You wouldn't want to be standing in the way of this big wave of beasties.
 Farmers that have small fields to irrigate use a Side Roller instead of Center Pivots, which are more commonly seen on most Nebraska farms. Although Side Rollers are less maneuverable and as efficient as Center Pivots, they are more cost effective for irrigating smaller fields.
Wayne Krausnik of Circle K said they were getting ready to wean the calves from the adults. He invited me to watch.
When I arrived the cowhands had the herd in one big pen. Two riders separated the adults one-by-one and shunted them into another pen. The youn-uns were kept in a corner then moved into a different pen.
As I left, I could hear the cows bellowing a half-mile away. Was this just their way, or was it the cry of mothers being separated from their children?
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