Holiday Inn Hotel And Convention Center Kearney

... go figure that out.  29,000 people live here and it is exactly 1733 miles to Boston and 1733 miles to San Francisco.  So I guess we are in the middle.  
Spanning I-80 is the Great Platte River Road Archway a tourist attaction that follow the stories of trappers, pioneers, the 49ers and Pony Express which passed through here in history.  Then up to more modern times with the ...

Left Denver in the morning and headed to Cheyenne WY and saw the state capitol. Quite a bit fancier than the NV capitol. From there headed to Nebraska using state highways. Went to Scottsbluff and Chimney rock. These were markers for western settlers following the Oregon, Mormon, California trails as well as the Pony Express. At Scottsbluff the wagon ...

... with period dress and pioneer demonstrations. (At least that's what Tish told Tom.) So we made the trek south of I-80, our concerns growing as we passed a series of cheesy signs for "Harold Warp's Pioneer Village." (Harold Warp made big money as the inventor of Flex-o-glass, for those of you trivia buffs in the crowd.)

Well...our fears were realized ...

The drive to Kearney, NB today was very long. This was the first time in three trips West that I have encountered extended traffic stops on the interstate. My luck finally ran out. We stopped at Cabela's. This is my second trip to this store. It is fabulous. I bought some new assault rifles to defend myself when I get to California. Check out my photo with the bear. It is in the entrance of Cabela's store.

... many towns in the Midwest use Lewis and Clark as a tourist attraction. I wanted to ride the buffalo, but the docent went nuts. I wanted to try on Sacajawea's bison skin , but they didn't like that either. This is a great stop if you are ever in the area ...

So after five weeks of enduring America's public transport system, it comes as a relief to head west from Chicago in a car. I'm sharing the petrol and driving with a fella moving West from Chicago, who turns out to be a bit of a character. The first day takes us 800 miles over the Great Plains through Iowa to Western Nebraska - thoroughly uninteresting landscape but pretty stunning skies.

... past 110 on a straight stretch of freeway, trying to get ahead of the storm as the first few golfball-sized hailstones fell around us. Got past it just before it crossed the freeway. Didn't need a broken windshield and dented up car a few hours after fixing the oil leak. Once we were past it, it put on a spectacular lightning show and gave us a chance to stop for some dramatic photographs.

Today's blog is pretty boring. I left Dubois this morning and did get to enjoy some beautiful scenery for a couple of hours - cattle country straight out of the Western movies. By 1pm though I was on the I-80 heading east and after that there was nothing worth seeing, or taking pictures of for that matter. The only thing on my mind was making as much distance as possible. I hit two bad thunderstorms ...

Today was a long long drive. To make it worse, I was just plain sick. I did make a run by the famous "Rock City" that I always saw the "See Rock City" signs as a kid. I did not bother to pay to go in. I was not feeling well. I got to the hotel and crashed hard.

We reached Kearney, Nebraska about 8:30 central time tonight......I really have not been sure of the correct time,day or date for almost a month now........the beauty of vacation!!! It will be a little hard getting back to the real world( we have been getting introduced to the cold and snowy weather today) but we are on the last leg of what has been an AWSOME Journey with Garmin , Harley and each other!!!!!!!!We have had such fun all ...