Today is History Day for the Aurora Middle School sixth graders, and they took a journey through yesterday at the Plainsman Museum. The 7-part tour is not just a journey about Aurora or Hamilton County - it's an opportunity to get the overall feel of what it was like to be a pioneer, what settlements and life were like. Played out by a group of dedicated volunteer tour guides, the journey begins at the covered wagon and heads down the boardwalk. PART ONE - THE BOARDWALK tour

As you enter through the double doors into the rotunda of the Plainsman Museum, you'll be tempted to look up, and stay there. The murals are breathtaking and more than a little bit likely to keep your eyes off the floor. But don't. You can't really appreciate the heavens without understanding the earth. Even without knowing their story, the floor murals will floor you. The Story The mosaic tile floor (photos below) represents the coming of the "Plainsman" to Nebraska. The

And what is life? A crazy quilt; Sorrow and joy, and grace and guilt, With here and there a square of blue For some old happiness we knew; And so the hand of time will take The fragments of our lives and make, Out of life's remnants, as they fall, A thing of beauty, after all. (excerpt from "A Crazy Quilt", in The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt in America by Douglas Malloch) On June 22-24 from 9am-5pm The Plainsman Museum is delighted to be hosting Nimble Thimble Quilt