Aug 3, 2020 - A fond farewell

North Platte, NE We had packed some of the gear last night in preparation for leaving today. We wanted to use up as much food as we could. We had leftover pancakes. We had leftover ice cream. A perfect combination! We were quite pleased with how well we had done on purchasing the right amount of food overall. We were also very pleased with how the week had gone and with the sights we had seen. We hiked a variety of trails, some easy and some challenging, in temperatures between 46 and 80 degrees and made it up as high as 12,310' above sea...

Jul 26, 2020 - Long day

North Platte, NE We have difficulty simply driving somewhere in a direct line. We should have taken 3 hours and 50 minutes to travel 268 miles to our hotel for the night. Instead we used up 9 1/2 hours and covered 371 miles in the course of the day. We participate in both the Great Park Pursuit and the Nebraska Passport programs. For the Great Park Pursuit, we stopped at 3 of the 20 parks designated. The parks are spread throughout the state so that is not a simple feat. Nor is locating the post with plate for doing the rubbings as the...

Jul 25, 2020 - Out of the heat

Elkhorn, NE Almost packed - the heat index is 105 to 110 so heading to the mountains sounds like a great idea! We will be off in the morning to Colorado. Our sister-in-law rented a condo for a week and invited us to join them. The "them" will consist of our sister-in-law Diana, our niece Elizabeth, our grand-nieces Kayla and Lily and our grand-nephew Sawyer so there will be 7 of us.

Jul 1, 2020 - Odds and ENDs

Elkhorn, NE This was the end of our 10-day stay in Keystone, SD. We were headed out to Scottsbluff in the western end of Nebraska. It seemed like a good idea when we were planning the trip. How were we to know it was going to turn hot? Temperatures all across the plains of Nebraska are in the 90s with high humidity. Then the air conditioning on the car (repaired only 1 month ago) went out. We got nothing but hot air - just like outside. That decided it. We cut things short and headed home. It was a marathon drive for us and was pretty...

Jun 19, 2020 - Water falls

Valentine, NE Water continues to fall from the skies which seemed like a good theme for the day. We scouted out some actual waterfalls. Yes, waterfalls in FLAT Nebraska! During the planning, we expected today to be a short day. It was not. We traveled 244 miles to change to our lodging only 170 miles away. After our extremely abbreviated breakfast of a fruit bar and a bottle of water (since we no longer get a wonderful breakfast buffet, why haven't the prices for the hotels been dropped accordingly?), we discovered that there was a geocache...

Jun 18, 2020 - Soggy Start

Norfolk, NE Although the quarantine is still around, we can leave the state. Jim searched for a state with the fewest coronvirus cases and found South Dakota where we figured we could easily avoid other people while hiking in the hills. On our way to South Dakota, however, we had a few things to do. Every year we participate in the Great Parks Pursuit where we travel to designated state and city parks to collect rubbings. We combine that with the Nebraska Passport program. In the Passport program we collect stamps in our books from various...

Jun 1, 2020 - Arrived in Nebraska

This morning we got started earlier than normal so that we could drop by the horse barn to see the Clydesdale horses that call Winfield, Kansas their home. They are known as The Broken Spoke Clydesdale's. We stopped by the horse barn and took several photo opts with the horses. After seeing the horses we pulled out and headed north. We will remember to look in the back of the arena for a rv site. It is a quieter spot being farther away from the highway and the railroad tracks. We headed up towards Wichita, Kansas. It was a good drive thru...

Mar 22, 2020 - Mountains Behind - Plains Ahead

We had a lot of miles to cover this Sunday, so back to the 5:15 alarm we went. After my ice detail it was time for breakfast. None of the cold, dry stuff offered by Quality Inn had any appeal, but fortunately the microwave once again transformed those Los Ayala sugar rolls from borderline stale to pretty darn good. This time I had remembered to buy OJ at last night’s gas station, so my morning repast was even semi-nutritious - to the extent that OJ can be considered nutritious that is. As for Jill, my Starbuck’s deprived navigator had been...

Dec 16, 2019 - Just A Little Detour

Before we get into Monday the 16th very far, I should clarify a couple of items. First, unlike our four previous driving years since we sold the motor home, we were not taking the more direct route, crossing the border at Laredo, TX, this year. We had come to really appreciate the Texas route since it saved us 1 1/2 days of driving and probably 700 miles, it had those great outlet malls at San Marcos that at least one of us really loved, it had that great Czech bakery with those excellent kraut rolls, not to speak of a very easy border...

Oct 14, 2019 - Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium

What a beautiful day at the zoo! Temperature was near perfect and the crowds were minimal. The Aquarium has very colorful displays. Lots of large viewing windows with personnel constantly interacting with the guests. The butterfly house was small and the butterflies were not very active. The Lied Jungle rainforest environment was great. I see enough desert so I gave the dome a cursory once over. I paid extra to go on the Skyfari chair lift so I could have a tree top view of the exhibits. Rode the steam train to get a view of the backs of...

Oct 9, 2019 - Doniphan, NE

We traveled US 36 to I-29 to Hwy 2 to I-80 into Doniphan, NE just outside Grand Island where we stayed at Grand Island KOA. Getting here was interesting as Hwy 2 has been partially wiped out by all the flooding this area has sustained in the last few months. They have begun reconstruction, but will be sometime before that highway is back to normal. The field flooding along the way was incredibly bad and crop after crop probably lost. We stayed here for three nights as the first major snow storm was predicted to hit west of here. Rain, wind...

Sep 21, 2019 - Short drive to Ogallala

Thursday morning we hooked the trailer back up and pulled out of the Riverside RV park and headed to Ogallala. As we left Scottsbluff we drove passed the sugar beet plant on the edge of town. The sugar beet harvest only last for a couple of weeks and by looking at the piles of sugar beets waiting to be processed into sugar. The harvest is ending. We have been by here at other times and there were piles of sugar beets all over the yard. This time there were only a few piles of them. We were still meeting trucks on the road that were headed...