OMAHA AND BEYOND

We spent a couple of days in Johnny Carson’s home town of Norfolk.  I managed to get in a couple of bike rides on a combination of bike trails and city residential streets.  Found a nice little coffee shop downtown and having arrived before they opened I waited with a homeless guy who filled me in on the city.  Actually a nice guy and he appeared to be sane.  He was there the next morning with his guitar strumming away while he waited for the coffee shop to open.

Continuing on still on our preferred blue routes, we made our way to Omaha for a re-supply.  We seem to always make a stop here on our cross country trips.  It’s right about in the middle of the country and has everything we need, Costco, Trader Joe’s plus things to do and see.  We stayed in a new (for us) city campground at GLEN CUNNINGHAM LAKE that has water, electrical and sewer hookups for the RV.  Large mature trees, maintained grass, and a paved trail for bikes and walkers around the lake.  Omaha has miles of paved bikes trails around the city, another reason to stop here.

We did manage to get downtown to see the JOSLYN ART MUSEUM.  A large facility with many galleries and many styles of art, from the European master, to American western and Native American.  We spent a couple of hours there and I especially liked the Native American exhibit with its pottery, decorated leather and beaded items.  In downtown there is a series of life sized bronze statues depicting the arrival of a pioneer wagon train.  The statues cover several blocks, with buffalo fleeing the settlers arrival and the buffalo spooking Canadian Geese.

When arriving in Omaha, we got a trailer wiring fault on the trucks computer and the trailer brakes quit working.  Still drivable, but worrisome.  So I found That Place RV Repair in the small town of Fremont, Iowa that happened to be right on a blue highway and in the direction we wanted to go.  So I gave them a call and spoke with Rich, the owner and sole employee.  He said he could take a look at it on Thursday and to call him on Thursday morning to remind him.  That was a little unsettling, but maybe he has a tendency to sleep in.  On the appointed morning, a gave him a call and told him I was on my way.  Arriving at 9, he told he needed a couple of hours and suggested that we head to Oskaloosa, some 15 miles away and get some breakfast.  What about Fremont the town we were currently in.  No restaurants here, go to Oskloosa.  So that’s what we did.  Pretty small city with a courthouse on the town square.  Had breakfast at Julie’s Cafe which was ok, but the price of a 3 egg omelet with sausage and cheese, potatoes, toast and coffee for $8.50 made it better.  Got the truck washed for $7.50 and headed back to the RV shop.  Rich told me he solved the problem by replacing all of the wiring between the RV and the 4 wheels.  He said the old wiring looked “sketchy”.  $75 later and we’re back on the road with no more brake issues…..Gotta love Middle America.

                                                                          OSKALOOSA

After entering Iowa, we would occasionally see FREEDOM ROCKS in the towns we passed through.  Freedom Rocks are huge boulders painted to honor veterans, brainchild of Ray “Bubba” Sorensen and there is one in each of Iowa’s 99 counties.  Each one is different with many honoring veterans from the county in which each rock is located.  Click the above link and see photos of all of them.

SLOWING DOWN

 We pushed it to Denver crossing the Rockies on I-70 which is not a Blue Highway.  We would have skipped Denver altogether, but a visit with my sister and getting together with an old colleague was in store.  Denver was a good place to actually start our Blue Highway journey.  So after a couple of nights, we pushed off heading north on I-25 a few miles to hookup with Colorado Hwy 14 heading east.  Transversing the Pawnee National Grasslands, passing through small towns that mostly support the ranching and farming folks and on into Nebraska.

We saw very few cars, but those that passed the opposite direction would wave.  Most drivers would raise their hand slightly off the steering wheel and hold it up until we passed.  Then there is the one finger wave.  Usually a pickup truck with a guy wearing a cowboy hat in the driver’s seat. He would raise just his index finger while not taking his hand off the wheel and perhaps a nod.  And then there is the driver that just nods.  It’s nice to see these friendly folks and I am sure that if I had a flat, they are to ones who would stop and help. I discovered that those that wave is some fashion are men. Women don’t wave.

The land we travel through is mostly farms are open range.  Corn and soybeans are the prevalent crops, interspersed with cattle.  The towns we past through a small with just a few hundred in population.  One main street just a couple blocks long, most seem to have fallen on hard times.  The land is beautiful though, with its changing colors of browns and greens.  Every so often a lesser road of gravel intersects the highway.  We are sometimes forewarned of the crossing dirt road from some distance away.  Far off a speeding pickup truck, or a semi hauling grain, can be seen approaching on a collision course with us identified by its long dusty contrail.

We pulled into North Platte in the late afternoon and found a spot in the city park.  Almost every town we pass through support a park with campsites.  Some just parking on the grass, others with full hookups.  Cost varies from free to $25 depending on the amenities.  Most county fair grounds have spots for RV’s.  North Platte’s offerings in a large city park, offer a spot on the grass with a table.  The park also boasts a small zoo, ball fields, and a railroad museum.  All the more reason to stop here.

North Platte sits at the confluence of the North and South Platte Rivers and was founded in 1866 when the Union Pacific Railroad reached here.  The railroad plays a big part in the city today with its Bailey Yards, the world’s largest rail yard.  It is here where trains heading in all directions come together and the rail cars are separated and put back together into new trains, depending on where the car has to go.  Also there is a major maintenance facility here. The yard encompasses more than 2800 acres, is 8 miles long and employs over 2000.  You can view the yards from the Gold Spike Tower, a 8 story viewing platform.

Keeping in the train vane, we checked out the small train display and museum in the park.  Small is relative when speaking of trains.  Only two engines, but as train engines go these were big.  The Challenger was delivered to the to the Union Pacific in 1943. It was one of 105 built and one of two that survive today.  It was designed to haul both haul and passenger trains and capable of obtaining speeds up to 80 MPH. Its tender is 47 feet long, held 28 tons of coal and 25,000 gallons of water. It was inservice until till 1961.  Also on display was a diesel electric locomotive similar to those in service today.  This locomotive is different from those in service today is that it has two power plants.  We were given a personal tour of both trains and the small museum by John, a docent who use to work for Union Pacific in the Bailey Yards.

After two nights in North Platte, we continued east stopping overnight at another city park in Ainsworth, Nebraska.  $10 for a spot with electricity and the bonus of a junior high football game.  The home team was getting slaughtered.  We are now in Norfolk, Nebraska for a couple of nights in hopes of getting a couple of bike rides in.  This is the eastern terminus of the Cowboy Trail, a 321 mile multi use trail on an abandoned railroad.

I will close with this observation; driving on Blue Highways beats the hell out of the Interstate.

BLUE HIGHWAYS

 Back in the day when people actually used maps to get around, blue was the color that designated the secondary roads while red were the primary routes.  In 1982, William Least-Heat Moon wrote a book about his travels around the country in his van on the blue highways.  The book “Blue Highways” became a best seller which I read at the time.

In our travels around the US and in other countries we’ve always be drawn to the blue highway and the small towns they pass through.  A slower pace, less traffic, you see more.  So we are now on another RV trip, across America and hopefully most of it will be done on the blue highway.  Of course sometimes the red highways will be necessary but we’ll try to keep them to a minimum.

We have a general idea of where we’re headed, but it is our practice to “change it up” when we see an opportunity to experience something different.  Right now our thinking is, head to Denver to pay a visit to my sister and a friend.  From there into Nebraska and Iowa, states we have visited many times before.  Then into southern Illinois, a state we have not paid much attention to.  Continuing on into Tennessee and then south towards New Orleans.  If we still have some of our two month allotted time left, a slow trip though Texas will bring us back to the West.

The first three days will be used getting to Denver and from there we will start exploring in earnest.  So follow along and I’ll try to keep you entertained.