We see our first sign for the Danish Windmill in Illinois, at least 280 miles away from its location in Elk Horn, Iowa. More signs follow, dotting I-80 W with such regularity that we start wondering how big a deal this windmill thing actually is.

My daughters and I are on the fourth day of what will become our first cross-country road trip. Armed with maps and Triptiks, we’re traveling from Baltimore to San Francisco, down the California coast, and back through the southwest part of the country. In an era before GPS technology, whoever rides shotgun knows they’re responsible for emergency navigation help should the driver (me) need it. I’m not, however, a road-trip novice. My father’s love for road tripping (combined with his natural curiosity about cultures and history) means that my childhood was filled with them.
We’re only about an hour and fifteen minutes out of Omaha, our stop for the night. So, following the now-ubiquitous road signs, we veer onto IA-173 N in search of the Danish Windmill.
Part of Dad’s job with AAA involved mapping out Triptik routes for AAA members who’d ordered them. With no computers to reference, Dad used road maps and memory to carefully mark each route in yellow highlighter. We used to joke that if there was a gas station at some remote intersection in Wyoming, Dad knew about it and used it as a landmark. All of this means I have full faith in a map’s ability to get us to and from any place we want to go.
The Danish Windmill feels a lot farther than the signs promised (“Just off I-80!”). It probably doesn’t take even fifteen minutes, but not knowing where you are tends to elongate time. The signs, however, seem even more excited (YOU’RE SO CLOSE!).
Finally, as promised, the Danish Windmill appears on our left.

It’s exactly what it says it is: a Danish Windmill. It’s the only working Danish windmill in the U.S.–a fact that doesn’t surprise me, because how many Danish windmills can there be in the U.S? But, of course, there’s more to the story. We learn that Elk Horn, Iowa is home to the largest Danish population in the U.S. (who knew?). We also learn how the windmill ended up in Iowa.
Back in 1975, one of Elk Horn’s residents visited Denmark. He already had a passion for windmills, and it concerned him to discover that the old windmills there were falling into disrepair. Hoping to save one for posterity (and benefit his home community as well), he spearheaded a project to dismantle an 1848 windmill in Denmark, ship it to the U.S., and reassemble it in Elk Horn. (You can read about it here.) The reconstructed windmill now anchors a museum complex that provides education about and preservation of Danish culture.
The windmill isn’t working on the day we visit, but it does its job: we leave knowing more than we did when we arrived.
The drive back to I-80 feels quicker than the trip to the windmill did. We’ve traveled this patch of road before, so we know what to expect. Still, I value the disorientation I felt when we first pulled off the highway. Seemingly endless cornfields, an unfamiliar roll to the land, signs for different foods, brands, businesses … aspects of Iowa are as different from back east as Denmark is.
I confess to occasionally rolling my eyes when Dad showed us how to follow our daily road-trip route on a Triptik or made me stop reading in the back seat to look at an interesting landmark or beautiful scenery. If we were driving to Quebec, he told us the history of French Canada. If we were passing through Lancaster County, we learned about the Amish. Sometimes, I was mostly thinking about what I’d order for dinner when we stopped for the night. I didn’t yet appreciate the shift of perspective that travel can ignite.
But I know, now. It’s illuminating to feel “other” now and then, to explore a place where you have more questions than answers. A map can get you there, but the rest is up to you.
Thanks, Dad.

Your dad’s Triptiks were works of art for the analogue age! Roadworthy sibylline leaves . . .
You and my husband are cut from the same road trip cloth. He loves this kind of thing. I confess to being more of a “let’s just get there” person, though I understand the charm and adventure. At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, a sense of direction and wayfinding is becoming a lost art. My kid asked me in all earnestness how we ever got anywhere before Google mapping apps and car-based GPS.
I actually had to stop and think about my answer. How did I know how to get to the mall as a 16 year old new driver? How did I know how to get home from almost anywhere in town? Other than “sort of absorbing it” I’m not sure I can answer that.
I’m not saying this out of generational superiority. My kids are better than me at other things… And many times (most recently in a surprise construction zone in suburban Detroit) Google maps has saved my bacon.
I heard an NPR report several years ago that said the more humans rely on GPS navigational tools, the more we are losing our instinctive ability to figure out where the heck we are. It’s an evolutionary use-it-or-lose it thing.
I still enjoy maps, and I love the opportunity to travel routes I don’t know and then try to nose my way home. I admit that this is easier knowing that I have a GPS safety net, but it’s fun to use the sun as a tool, too. My road trips have been GPS-guided since maybe 2016, but I always have maps, too. I like seeing the bigger picture of where I’ve been and where I’m going. Also, the GPS is not always accurate — like the time it took me to somebody’s house in Fargo, ND instead of to the the hotel I expected to find. I still haven’t figured out that one.
Robert, they WERE cool, weren’t they? Such precision! They were virtual trips for Dad before virtual was cool.