Nebraska is awesome. My old Nebraska thoughts were something like this, "Nebraska, corn, flat, icky." My new Nebraska thoughts are, "What a beautiful state. Every acre that can be is planted in corn, or soybeans or corn. Old farmhouses stand where they were built 100 years ago. People work hard. The little towns are dying - churches boarded up, shitty little sheetmetal bars, crappy little stores. Nice folks, working hard, like everywhere else. Everything is green - valleys, hills - 23 shades of greens that an artist would envy. Lots of farm equipment stores, yay John Deere, feed silos, grain towers. Cowboy hats. Even some high fashion and great hair styles."
We rolled into Valentine, NE on a whim. We are always tense and scrambling at the end of our day, comparing books for camp sites. Valentine is a beautiful little town, sweet old buildings. Our park the 9th is Fishberry, run by a family who owns the farm around it. Patty says it used to be their horse pasture. It is neat as a pin in layout and each building. Nothing gets by Patty the farmer's wife. We talked while I was in the spotless shower - and let me just say as an aside - we live for free, spotless showers. There's nothing better after a long, hot and hotter day, to slip into a cool, clean environment and lather up. And as I slide my soap laden hands up and down....oh, sorry, never mind. Ooops. Lost myself in the clean, spotless shower. Anyway, Patty was Soft Soaping everything in sight, and I was complimenting her on their picnic building that was built so well. This was also the first place Roku relaxed on the picnic table in his harness.
Took off the next morning at the crack of 11, as usual, with a destination in mind. Smith Falls is the tallest waterfall in Nebraska, and also has camping. We didn't end up there because there are no showers listed, but, there are. And, it turns out it's the sweetest little camping spot in the world. It was a great hike to the Niobrara (Ny oh bra ra) River, to cross the sturdy and utilitarian Vertigre Bridge. Nebraskans are frugal, and have disassembled and reassembled this bridge about four times - great use. The Niobrara River has been designated a Scenic River, and is on the National Geo top 100 rivers to kayak, canoe or tube. It is brownish and flows at a lovely pace for all of the above. Across the river we see several of the tubers heading for the Falls. Someone has built a sturdy wooden trail to the Falls, excellent for walking. Below is what we saw:
Great respite for us on our busy way, and we both agreed the hike felt great.
Drove many long roads through...yes, cornfields and soybeans and cornfields. Ended up in Pierce at the Willow Creek Rec Area. Hardly anyone in sight, as the algae is in the water. About ten trailers all bunched up in one area, so we went in another by ourselves. Had to take the car off to park, then went to town to check it out. Not alot going on. Neat houses and lawns, no business. What commerce there is, seems, well, disheveled. Asked if they had a DQ, and was pointed to a place down the road called Short Stop, I think. In we go to a very old, yet has some potential for being cleaned up and cool. The enormous and unkempt gent serving us, couldn't meet our eyes, mumbled alot, and I think smelled bad. Hard to tell if it was him or the place.
He perked right up though, when he saw we are from Washington state. An immediate monologue about the Huskies and Cornhuskers ensued, although directed somewhere toward the counter or floor, or maybe his loafers. I couldn't figure out what to order, so he waited on someone else while I asked her what to get. We ended up with shakes, and, like the place, they had potential, and he made the right motions making them, but they fell off the mark. By then he had warmed up to us and we were joking back and forth about sports, mostly. Good enough.
Got up to a beautiful, sunny morning, made my latte, spent a few rapt minutes listening to the birds and locusts with Roku. Tony sleeping. Saw some fluttering and saw that a cardinal - a red cardinal! I've never seen one before last night! - was hanging onto the driver's window of the Sebring, pecking at himself in the mirror. It was awesome! I got a few pics too far away, but posted here.
I am ALSO posting a few pics of "bugs that made it to our grill and died an untimely death." I feel bad for them, but man are they picture perfect on the grill. Extra credit for anyone who can name these bastards!
And how Roku spends the day traveling:
On the road again, me driving. Many long roads and cornfields again. We try and take back roads as much as possible and succeeded soundly with that today. Every farm neat and orderly, crammed in every foot with corn, pretty much. As below:
A little frustration with our lack of planning makes us cranky later in the afternoon. Tony seems to have no use for my navigation skills, and, I admit, I'm not crackerjack at it. But I can read a map of Iowa - everything is a square! Although, saying that, we ended up going in a circle, wasting time, and it was frustrating. But got back on track and are in bitchin' Hagge County park, Sac City, IA. Filled with construction workers and their trailers, but we were able to squeeze in.
On to Chi town! Much love, Jack and Tony
Wow - another awesome blog! Only 1330 miles from Sac City to Burlington VT! Go Roku!
ReplyDeleteMiss the cardinals as they are lovely to look at. Wait until you see some of the males - they have a more robust coloring. With the crests, positively regal.
ReplyDelete