The Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles is located at 606 Heartland Road in Lexington, Nebraska (just off I-80). What this means is that I drove right by it, 15 years ago, and didn’t know it was there; However, at the time, we were traveling with 3 vehicles, in-laws, a 6 week old baby boy, 2 cats, and a everything we owned. The trip was a 3 day move from the moraines of Madison, Wisconsin, to the mountains of SLC, Utah.
Given all the factors and distractions, I suppose it wasn’t the best time to stop at a museum. However, we did stop when the rear tire blew out on the motorhome I was driving somewhere in the middle of Nebraska. Now, I didn’t know this was the rear tire when the explosion rocked the motorhome at 65 mph. No, I was pretty sure a crack opened in the middle of the highway and the devil himself had grabbed a hold of the rear axle, attempting to pull us all to the depths of Hades. It wasn’t until I slowed (perhaps screeched) to a stop that I came to my senses (an started breathing again) and realized that it was only a tire. My next step was to clean up my pants.
Importantly, it wasn’t just a tire that blew, because something was opened by the blast …. a hole in the wheel well. Though we didn’t realize the hole was there, the cats did. So, in the middle of the night, after a long day of driving, with everyone asleep, those dumb Wisconsin farm cats (Dodger and Tucker) snuck outside (by opening one of the kitchen cabinet doors near the floor and then sneaking out the hole in the wheel well). At about 2 am, one of our cats (Dodger) started crying outside the motorhome waking us all up. It took all my effort not to strangle Dodger; the other cat, Tucker, didn’t reappear until we were packed up and ready to abandon him. By then we were actually happy to see him.
Yes, that was not a good time to visit what appears to be a fine Museum, with over 100 military vehicles of all kinds. So, just a tip, leave the cats and all your stuff at home. Here are some pics of what you’ll see.
From Dieselpowermag.com is this cool image which includes a MB SlatGrille and a M-38A1:
I can’t remember where I found this image … oops.
From the Unwanted Blog, come these images of a M-38A1, a Schwimmwagen, and a Kubelwagen:
