Ramada Inn 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.  <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 ...

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.)<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>

... 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.

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 ...

... the first one only lasted 30 minutes but the rain was severe, causing some drivers to pull over. The second storm, this time in Nebraska, was about an hour with high winds but the rain was lighter. It did serve to drop the temperatures from the low 30sC to the low 20sC, which was a nice break. I stopped for the night in Kearney, Nebraska (about half-way across the state). Total mileage today: 1087km

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.

... an hour! As we left the gorgeous scenery we traveled in very high winds for quite awhile,but no more snow...... We were glad we had saved one more really good book tape(Thanks Micah) for this part of the trip that we knew would not be so much to see. It is called Dark Moon by John Sanders,and we should have just enough of it left to get us home tomorrow. A HIGHLIGHT of our trip through Nebraska was our stop at Paxton....we had to stop ...