Warm weather is calling you to come out and play. Whether you prefer to quietly savor nature's splendor or jump into the excitement of the season's festivals, get your spring fix at one of these weekend getaways.

Put Down Roots

(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: MARCH/APRIL 2004)

Arbor Day Weekend To understand the roots of the celebration held each spring near Nebraska City, Nebraska, look no farther than the free goodie that tourists clutch as they wander around the festivities. The wispy tree seedlings kids hold like prizes from a fair reflect the dream of J. Sterling Morton, who helped a forest sprout from the southeast Nebraska prairie more than 130 years ago. That led to the first Arbor Day and ignited the tree-planting passion celebrated at the annual Arbor Day Weekend.

Late every April, Arbor Day Farm becomes the focal point of earthy revelry, nestled among hazelnuts, lindens, oaks and pines near Morton's estate, just west of Nebraska City.

Upwards of 15,000 visitors view orchard demonstrations, hike through the woods, listen to live music and learn more about trees.

All weekend in town, crafts shows bustle, and antiques stores and food vendors court passing traffic. Arbor Day Farm's Apple House, shops and museum buzz with crowds learning about orchard tools, tree planting and more.

"It would be bad if we didn't have trees," proclaims 8-year-old Branna Wheelbarger of College Springs, Iowa. "If we didn't have them, we wouldn't have any paper."

"We wouldn't have any oxygen either," adds Lizzie Crapson, 9, also of College Springs.

Outside the Tree Adventure Pavilion, a musician strums a banjo, as people stroll by clutching the seedlings grown in the farm's greenhouse. Nearby, kids make tree costumes, clamber up trunks and branches or tug away in a tree-sawing contest.

J. Sterling Morton may never have envisioned that his homesickness for leafy shade would give rise to this warm celebration. Then again, his words inscribed in stone in the nearby Lied Lodge & Conference Center hint that he just may have: "Other holidays repose on the past; Arbor Day proposes for the future."

By Jennifer Wilson. Photographs: Bob Ervin.

Related Links: