Kearney-Days Inn

... 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.  <br>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 ...

... pea sized hail for about 20 minutes. <br><br>From Chimney Rock I went up to Carhenge in Alliance NE. This is a replica of Stonehenge but it is made of cars, to the correct dimensions of Stonehenge. Kind of tacky but definitely an icon of western Nebraska. <br><br>After Carhenge I continued east, again getting more rain, and spent the night in Kearney NE.

... 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.)<br> <br>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.<br>

... next stop was Kearney. I stopped at the Cabelas - a huge sporting goods store. This place has more guns than a small army. The customers at this store were real men. I heard on the radio that it might snow tomorrow. I hate snow. Who would live where it snows?

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.

Oil leak fixed, $45 motel, and within 1-day's range of our motel. Now we're doing a little better. Caught up to a storm front in Nevada around sunset, when thunderstorms are at their most powerful. As we drove past, under the rain-free base, just to the Southeast of the storm, a massive downburst developed with powerful straight-line winds and threatening-looking clouds. I pushed the ...

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.