Further Adventures in Greater Nebraska

Saturday morning, after an organizational and political effort equalling that required for manned space flight, we headed to Norfolk, Nebraska.

"We" is my brother, his wife, their three kids, and me.  The purpose of our trip was to visit her parents and her sister's family who were visiting Norfolk from Ohio.  My brother and his family were staying through the New Year; I was coming back to Omaha on Sunday and therefore caravanned with them.

My 12-year-old nephew and a bunch of sleds joined me in the trusty Vue and the rest of the family packed into their van.  After only a couple of quick misstarts, we took off.

Immediately a minor crisis developed in the Vue:  the stereo system was dead.  (Foreshadowing:  the car started fine otherwise.)  Luckily my nephew is a resourceful young man, particularly when matters of audio electronics are involved, and he pulled out some portable speakers that he had brought - apparently for just such an occasion.  Lickety-split he had them hooked up to his iPod.  Also luckily, my nephew shares his father's eclectic and generally good taste in popular music so the iPod mix was enjoyable, featuring everything from Phillip Phillips to quasi-rap to Aerosmith.

Representatives of law enforcement will be pleased to know that the traffic education program recently provided by the State of Nebraska, County of Douglas, to my brother, was effective and we drove at exactly the speed limit for the entire two hour trip. Exactly. The. Speed. Limit.

Most of the trip looked like this:

If you put yourself in the right frame of mind, the brown/gray/black and white landscape of the midwestern winter can be pretty.  Whether this is an acquired taste, like scotch, or more along the lines of people getting better looking just before the bar closes, I will leave to your judgment, dedicated reader.

Highway 6 is the second-longest U.S. highway, running from Cape Cod to California.  My Hoosier friends will know that it runs across the top of Indiana, more or less parallel with the Indiana Toll Road (now owned by the Spanish, but only for another seventy years).  You can apparently drive Highway 6 from coast to coast, which might be a good trip sometime (although if I were doing the "old highway" theme I'd probably go old-school and follow Route 66 or Lincoln Highway), but the relevant point here is that Highway 6 runs through Omaha, where it is Dodge Street/West Dodge Road.  (Here's a city-planner-geek thing that has always fascinated me:  there is a Dodge Street and a Center Street in Omaha, each of which turns into West Dodge (or West Center) Road.  I've never known why and if anyone can clue me in, I'd appreciate it.) 

We took Highway 6 out of Omaha, which I think is sort of cool.  But the really cool thing - and yes, I understand that "cool" may be pushing it for people who aren't urban geeks - is that for this trip we also were briefly on Highway 30.  That is the third longest U.S. highway, and is the road one drives from Fort Wayne to points northwest.  (As a public service to you, my dedicated reader, I will reiterate the First Rule of Travel:  Never Take Highway 30 West of Merrillville, Indiana - and preferably not west of Valparaiso.  Despite your understandable and desparate desire to find a Better Way Around Chicago, and despite the fact that the map shows Highway 30 heading due west, appearing to avoid the Chicago spaghetti bowl, and emptying out nicely onto I-80 at Joliet, don't do it.  You're on a local street for about a thousand miles and no matter the season, the road is always under construction.  It's like meth:  it may seem like a good idea at the time, but the next thing you know you haven't slept in two weeks and your teeth have all rotted out.  Be advised.)

While we're discussing interesting infrastructure topics (look, buddy, it's interesting to ME and this is MY blog), let me jump in here with a short discussion of the correct pronounciation of Norfolk.  The town, population 24,000, is located at the North Fork of the Elkhorn River.  Its original name was submitted to whoever is in charge of these things in Washington, DC, as Norfork - sort of like North Fork, get it?  But somehow it was recorded as Norfolk.  This could have been a simple mistake, but most Nebraskans (including myself) subscribe to the theory that some pointy headed bureaucrat thought "those dumb country people certainly meant to name their town after Norfolk, Virginia, so I'll just correct their ignorance by changing the spelling."  Regardless, true Nebraskans say "Norfork."

On Highway 275 (which isn't nearly as cool as U.S. 6 or U.S. 30 - sorry), we passed through a number of small towns.  Each of these has its own post office and at least one (usually more) grain elevator.  There is also a BP or Sinclair station, and at least two bars.  (I believe there is a state law that sets out these requirements.)  Scribner, population 857, is illustrative:

As you can see, Scribner also has a nice welcome sign.

It seems inevitable that highways go through the least attractive parts of town.  For instance, what you see above is what Scribner looks like from 275.  Nothing to write home about.  But if you turn one block off the highway, you see some really pretty buildings:

Of course, if the highway went by the pretty buildings, they'd probably all end up torn down.  My point is that it's worth a couple of minutes to occasionally turn off the highway and see what the rest of the town looks like.

My nephew is a self-contained kid.  He is smart, funny, fun, and really sweet.  He is not, however, what you'd call a talker.  Our conversation consisted of my rambling and his politely acknowledging what I'd said.  For some people, such a situation might have felt like a problem.  As you know, I am not one of those people.

I even told him the urban legend I'd heard, which I choose to believe is true, about the Valley Irrigation company, based in Valley, Nebraska (just west of Omaha).  As I'd heard it told, the company was near bankruptcy at one point in the 1950's or 1960's, and several investors decided that it wasn't worth the broker's commission to sell the stock, so they held onto it.  The company turned around and these guys made a ton of cash.  The moral, I guess, is that once you've hit rock bottom, sometimes it makes sense to just hang on.  An alternate lesson is that some folks are simply lucky.  My nephew listened to all of this, even appearing interested, which is a tribute to his good upbringing and excellent parents.

Regardless of the truth of the story, Valley seems to be selling a lot of irrigation equipment.

After the terrible droughts of the 1970's in Nebraska, there were basically two types of farmers:  those who had invested in irrigation, and those who were no longer farming.  In Nebraska, you were a "dry land farmer" if you didn't irrigate.  That says it all.

It may take you nearly as long to read this post as it took to drive to Norfolk, and I apologize for that.  Once we got to my in-laws' house (yeah, I know, they're not really my in-laws but just humor me), the kids went sledding on a nearby dam.  There's a funny story about my brother and his wife being featured on the front page of the Norfolk Daily News wiping out on this sled run a few years ago, but unfortunately I don't have that picture.  So you'll have to enjoy this shot instead:

After a wonderful afternoon of cooking and wine tasting, and then a delicious dinner followed by the guys doing the dishes, and a couple of episodes of Downton Abbey Sunday morning, I got in the Vue to return to Omaha.

The good news was that my stereo wasn't dead.  The battery was.  My brother and his father-in-law gave me a good jump and I promised not to stop until I got a new battery in Omaha.

My promise notwithstanding, I did make a quick stop (not turning off the engine) at a historic marker just west of Fremont, erected in 1928.  The marker both commemorated historic events and was also, apparently, historic in itself, as it was old and surrounded by a chain link fence for protection.  Regardless, the marker pointed out that this route was "An Old Indian Trail, East to West - Route of Major S.H. Long, June 7, 1820 - Part of Mormon Migration 1847 to 1864 And California Gold Rush 1849."  Some people may not know that the Mormons crossed the country through Nebraska but had to use a separate route to avoid conflict with other settlers.  They spent a terrible winter just north of Omaha, and Omaha has a Mormon Bridge across the Missouri River near where their winter encampment was located.  But I hadn't realized that, at least according to this marker, the Mormons took the same route as the Gold Rush.  That must have made for some interesting campfires.

Oh, if you're ever in Omaha in need of car service on a Sunday, I highly recommend the BP station at 79th and West Dodge Road.  Quick, friendly service and they even washed the Vue.  This place has been there since Henry Ford, I think, although it used to be an Amoco station back in the day.  The Service Center is open until 5.

The Perils of Pauline

It's hard both to live life and to chronicle it, unless you are a lot more disciplined than I am.  I've spent the past ten days on two major projects:  a surgical strike visit to Fort Wayne, and Christmas.

First, the trip.  Although I originally hadn't planned to go back to the Fort until next spring, I decided to return for a day to see several people.  That meant a 10-hour drive one day, a day of visiting, and then driving back the third day.  Given predicted winter weather conditions, I left early the Wednesday before Christmas to get ahead of the snowstorm.  That worked, and I arrived in Fort Wayne in time for dinner Wednesday night.  My plan was to let the blizzard come through on Thursday, and return to Omaha on Friday when the interstate was clear.  That was my plan, and everything was going well on Friday until I hit western Illinois.  Although it had been overcast with some snow in Fort Wayne, Chicago was clear and dry, and I had my sunglasses on.  Yeah, the future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.

The first sign of potential trouble - what some might call a "clue" - was when I stopped for lunch about 45 miles east of the Iowa border at 2-ish.  West Branch, Iowa (about 50 miles west of the Illinois line), is home to the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library which my parents had recommended as worth the stop.  So I thought, hey, I should easily be able to get to West Branch before 4 and could swing by for a quick inspection.  Consulting the Google, just to see how far off the exit it is, I was told 140 miles, 4 hours.  Confused at this obvious mistake, I mapped the distance to my brother's house - that time should have been in the range of 6 or 7 hours, and it was showing more like 9.  Darn Google Maps and their trying to be like Apple, I thought, and pressed on.

It didn't take long to encounter ice and packed snow on Interstate 80.  Nice. The weather itself was dry, but the snow hadn't all been cleared from the day before.  There was about 3/4 of an inch, and usually just in one lane, and that was scary enough.  Of course, Interstate 80 is dominated by tractor-trailer traffic, and the only thing that makes driving on ice more fun is doing so in proximity to extremely large vehicles that bend in the middle.  I started counting cars off the road, and kept a separate tally of semis.

At the Iowa border the condition of the road stopped being frightening, because I was no longer driving.  "Driving" implies movement, and that just wasn't happening.  Obviously I wasn't getting to the Hoover Museum that day (it was about 6 by the time I passed West Branch, although honestly I'd stopped paying attention to the clock at that point).  I hit a couple of rest stops, thoughtfully provided by the taxpayers of Iowa, or someone, every 30 to 40 miles.  (Seriously, the only good thing you can say about driving I-80 across Iowa, even in good weather, is that there are lots of convenient and clean rest stops, with wifi provided by a Fort Wayne company, as a matter of fact.)  One of the stops was staffed by a Very Nice Lady who could only deliver bad news - that the road conditions were no better throughout Iowa.  It was cold, and with no sun (initially from clouds, then from pre-Solistice nightfall), things weren't going to get better for a while.

But I've never been a person to let facts get in the way of a Good Plan.  Sure, I wasn't going to make Omaha by 8 p.m., which had been my original goal, but there was no reason that I couldn't get back that night.  After all, I wasn't drowsy and every mile of progress was, well, a mile of progress, and who wants to spend money on a motel room anyway?  So I pressed on.

Perhaps it was the experience of being stopped on I-80 in Des Moines behind a truck driver putting chains on his tires at 9:15 p.m. - still 140 miles from Omaha - that caused me to decide that discretion was the better part of valor.  In any event, it was around that time that I decided that even though I was two hours from Omaha under optimal conditions, I had no way of knowing the actual road conditions - and so far, "optimal" hadn't been in the cards.  Plus, driving on roads partially covered with snow is worse when you can't see more than 25 feet ahead.  So I stopped at a lovely Hilton Gardens Inn in Johnson or Urbandale or some such place, just outside Des Moines.  (Of course, I had missed the exit with all the cheap motels; such was my punishment for stubbornness.)  My knuckles soon returned to their normal color.

Turns out to have been a good decision.  The rest of Metro Des Moines was as bad as the first part had been, even in daylight - but it was easier to take after a good night's sleep.  Even better, much of the rest of I-80 was clear (and since I could see it, I could take advantage of the good conditions - had I been driving in the dark I would still have been terrified to go a normal highway speed).  It took three hours to get to Omaha (normal conditions would have been under two), and I returned in time to watch one of my nephews play a couple of basketball games in a tournament at Bellevue East High School.

Oh, and the final tally?  Although I stopped keeping a solid count, in the 350 or so miles from western Illinois to Des Moines, there were more than 50 cars and about two dozen semis off the road.  From Des Moines to Omaha, there was about half again that number - including a car on Saturday morning that still had two occupants in it when I saw it in the median.  (I called 911 and they'd already been notified.)

Well, that is harrowing enough for one post.  Stay safe on the roads out there, and I'll fill you in on Christmas later.

Untitled

Part I:

Last Thursday night I was at my 9-year-old nephew's elementary school, doing what a person is supposed to do in December at an elementary school:  watching an adorable music pageant.  (This one was about a snowman and featured my nephew in a Significant Speaking Role as a TV anchor.  He was excellent, of course!)  My phone wouldn't let me e-mail the video file to my sisters, his other aunts, because it was too big, so there wasn't a lot of media coverage of this event.  I was at the school with my brother and his wife, her parents, my nephew who is 12, and my niece who is nearly seven.

Nearly seven.  Her birthday is next month.

Twelve hours later, everyone on earth with access to electronic media was hearing about another person at another school, and about twenty other children who were nearly seven as well.  These children will never celebrate their next birthdays, not next month, not next year.  And six women, educators who had probably planned to spend that Friday trying to keep holiday-frazzled kids focused on learning, instead gave their lives trying to protect their children.

There are not words to describe this tragedy further.

Part II:

I am not a gun person.

There were no guns in my home growing up.  My dad didn't hunt.  If any of my friends had guns in their homes, I didn't know about it.  I shot at a camping program a couple of times as an adult, and it was fun, but it's not like I had any urge to go buy a gun.

So I don't get the whole being passionate about guns thing, although I do get that lots of people are.  I pay enough attention to know that the Second Amendment has begun being interpreted by the Supreme Court to mean that certain types of gun restrictions are not Constitutional.  And I also understand that the existence of a law doesn't ensure strict compliance with that law.

(On a strictly practical level, however, I don't understand why anyone whose home is lived in or visited by children, or by adults with bad tempers and access to alcohol or other drugs, or anyone who hasn't completed SEAL firearms training and who is always home [i.e., they can prevent a criminal from breaking into their house and stealing the gun] - I don't get why anyone like that even WANTS a gun.  I've never understood how one balances keeping the gun safe [i.e., relatively inaccessible] with having it available when an intruder breaks in.)

But I respect that many passionate pro-gun people (some of whom are my friends) are very sincere and well-intentioned in their beliefs.

Same as me.

There has been a lot written and said in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook School shooting, some of it actually productive discussion.  The most interesting to me are the statements that are political - that is, people talking about the policy implications of this terrible crime:  the sense that this shouldn't have to happen again so maybe THIS TIME our country should do more than just talk, that perhaps President Obama and the Democratic leadership will take on a weakened-NRA and work with Republicans on policies (gun control, mental health, maybe others) that can reduce the likelihood that another community will have to face the same nightmare.  This conversation gives me more hope than I've had on the issue for a long time.

Gun control proponents have been narrowing their goals for years - I don't know that anyone in any sort of position of power talks about a handgun ban anymore, for instance - but now it seems that gun control opponents are beginning to see the danger in continuing to cling (yes, I said "cling") to an absolutist stance that the Second Amendment lets anyone own any weapon he or she could possibly dream up.

Rights aren't absolute.  Yelling "fire" in a crowded theater?  Not protected speech.  Apparently freedom of religion isn't absolute, either, since pastors in my faith (Unitarian Universalism) cannot perform legal marriage rites for same sex couples, despite the fact that we believe such marriages are the same as marrying opposite sex couples.  But that, as they say, is a topic for another day.  My point is that people can (and, in a democratic society, SHOULD) discuss what are reasonable limits on rights while still protecting the intent of our Founding Fathers.

So let's do that.

I hope people post thoughtful comments here.  And by "thoughtful" I mean written with the assumption that no one is in favor of policies that allow heavily armed crazy people to murder children and teachers in their school, regardless of one's position on gun control.  Personally, I believe that an assault weapons ban is absolutely a must and I hope that Congress works up the courage to pass such a law.  But I also believe that no good legislation can be passed until we can get past the shouting (either actual or metaphorical) and name-calling - and that begins with each of us.

Rocky Mountain High

There was a time when it would have been inconceivable for my college buddy Plotts and me to be in a state that had just legalized marijuana use without being in, well, a state of marijuana use.  But such days are, apparently, behind us, which is proven by the fact that I was in Colorado visiting Plotts the day after Governor Hickenlooper declared their voter-approved legalization to be part of the State Constitution and consumed nothing stronger than sugar-free lemonade and some good barbecue.  (And if Colorado weren't enough, I was also in Seattle this week, following the voters' approval of Initiative 502, - and limited my use of mood-altering chemicals to wine and an ibuprofen)  My point here is that college was a long time ago.

Still, it was great to see Plotts as well as a couple of my cousins in Denver, one of whom made me a sign:

 

She gave it to me along with a couple of Sharpies so that people can autograph it.  Isn't it a cool memento?

Wednesday morning I left Denver for points north*, going through Golden first (before you ask:  no tours were available, plus noon is a bit early for me to start drinking beer when I have a 500+ mile drive ahead of me).  Plotts said that Golden is a cute town and he was right.  Then, as contrast, I drove through Rocky Flats which appears to consist solely of the Rocky Flats Closure Project (a federal environmental remediation project), a roadhouse called Rocky Flats Lounge (its appearance was not nearly as classy as the Interlude Lounge), and three windmills that were not turning.

So I pressed on.  Through Boulder, Lyons, and Roosevelt National Forest until, finally, Estes Park - which has an elevation (7,522) that is larger than its population (5,858).  The point of Estes Park, of course, is that it is the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.  And even if that's your only reason for existence, that would be good enough.  But Estes Park is also home to the Stanley Hotel, one of those beautiful early 20th Century railroad hotels.  The Stanley is also famous because it is A) haunted and B) was the site of Stephen King's The Shining.  I didn't stop in.  (I know that if Mitch had been with me, I would have had the nerve to walk in like I owned the place.  I'll have to start channelling her.)

Also while in Estes Park, although not at the Stanley, I saw three moose wandering along a driveway at some condos.  No one seemed concerned.  I guess the moose were there first, after all.

Driving down from Estes Park to Loveland is gorgeous, but which unfortunately for you, dedicated reader, was a bit too harrowing for me to stop and photograph.  Luckily, others are braver.  Here's a picture I found online which gives you a sense of the Big Thompson River, which runs along Highway 34 all the way down the mountains and is incredibly beautiful.  The river's beauty (and good fishing) have apparently overcome the fear people have of its annoying tendency to flood because there are homes built right up against the water.  Or maybe it's because it's called the Big Thompson, which has got to be the best name of a river that I've ever heard.


This photo of River Spruce is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Once you get past Loveland, there's very little between you and Omaha.  I know, that's a prejudiced statement - people going to Chicago might say "there's very little between you and Chicago" which of course would just be wrong.  And it isn't true - there were a bunch of things that if I had started earlier in the day I would have stopped to see, not the least of which were the wide variety of Buffalo Bill attractions in North Platte and an original Pony Express station in Gothenburg.  However, I didn't feel like staying over in order to see them during the day, so I drove the eight and a half hours back to Base Camp (a.k.a. my brother's basement) in the dark, fortified by bad coffee and satellite radio.

*I had considered looking up Hunter S. Thompson's homestead, Woody Creek, but it was several hours west on the other side of the Rockies so I decided against it.

Fear of Flying

Five days in Seattle has been good. Not blogging for five days has also been good. I've thought about blogging for several days but haven't had a lot to say. And although it probably took me longer to learn this lesson than for most people, when I don't have anything to say I try not to say it.

And so now back on a plane, which serves as a reminder to me why most of this trip is about driving. There was a sign in the very long security line saying that 25% of TSA employees served in the U.S. military. I think the primary purpose of that statistic is to make people think twice before being rude to a TSA agent. It seems that it might be a good idea if such signs were everywhere. Something like "Support our troops? Then don't be a jerk, just in case you're talking to one." We could all use that reminder from time to time.

For instance, me, right now, as I wait for a Frontier gate agent to show up so I can get a seat assignment.

The one way that air travel is more enjoyable than driving is that you can read. I started reading Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon. The author lost his job and marriage and decided to drive around America on back highways. Luckily he was an English professor and is an excellent writer so the book is very good.  Lucky us: if he'd been an electrical engineer it might not have turned into a book.

Now the gate agent has arrived but they appear to be having IT problems. Maybe I was too quick to dismiss the value of electrical engineers. (Just joking; some of my favorite people are electrical engineers.)

Well, dedicated reader, I am going to sign off in the hope of getting a seat. I'll catch up with you later for a full report, when I have something interesting to say.

Breaking Bow

The interstate drive from Omaha to Denver, which goes through the southern part of Nebraska, takes about eight hours.  Not that I would know that first hand, however, because I took the scenic route.

North of I-80 is a geological phenomenon known as the Sandhills.  Yes, kids, these are hills made of sand and dirt and grass.  If you've ever heard of pioneers living in soddies, this is where it happened.  You can graze the land, and if you're the kind of person who cannot acquiesce in the face of continued failure and who doesn't need a lot to eat, you can try to farm it.  And if you're driving west from Omaha with no particular agenda, you can take Highway 2 northwest out of Grand Island through the Sandhills which adds considerable interest and, as it turns out, about four hours, to the trip.

[This has nothing to do with the Sandhills but I do not remember Omaha ever having the fog that it has had this past week.  Monday morning was "Maumee River/Old Highway 24 to Toledo/Highway of Death" fog, and it lasted for probably 15 miles, not clearing until I hit the Platte River.  Very weird.]

Anywho, Highway 2 follows a rail line pretty much the entire way to Alliance - originally the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad, now the BNSF.  You drive by places like Hazard (population 66) and Litchfield (population 257), and they look like this:

Just about every little town in western Nebraska has a Post Office, compliments of Virginia Smith, the longtime Congresswoman from Nebraska's 3rd District, who was notable primarily for getting a Post Office into just about every little town in western Nebraska.  Because of the responsibility I feel toward you, my dedicated reader, I did spot checks in several towns and yes, they nearly all had a Post Office although by 4:30 p.m. on a Monday some of them didn't look open.  (See also:  "Business Model Problems of the U.S. Postal Service.")

When I lived in Nebraska, back in the Dark Ages, we referred to everyplace west of Lincoln and north of Omaha as "outstate."  I never thought of this as pejorative - it was like "southpaw" or something that is a nickname but you don't mean anything bad by it.  However, two years ago when I was back visiting and used the phrase, I was quickly admonished by my family that this was not the type of language that civilized people used anymore in polite conversation, since it apparently implies (at least to the people outstate) that some Nebraskans are more "in" than others.  The preferred term is now "Greater Nebraska."  Honestly.  Look, I'm all in favor of calling people what they want to be called, so I will humor the folks from Greater Nebraska if that's the name they want.  But it's still outstate to me.

Before I forget, here's what the Sandhills look like:

Sometimes they're bumpier.  This picture really doesn't do them justice.

A woman I know in Fort Wayne lived in Broken Bow whose population of 2,500 makes it the biggest town along Highway 2, and therefore something of a destination.  She told me to have lunch at the Arrow Hotel, and I'm glad she did.  The hotel was built in 1928 "with local capital," according to their brochure, and people seem very proud of that fact (which they should be - along with the fact that it is a very nice place that is still in business and has a terrific hamburger).  If you are ever in Broken Bow, you should definitely stop in.  Then, to prove what a ridiculously small world it is, she told me to go to the Eberle Boot and Saddle shop down the street and tell Bud Eberle "hello" so I did. 

Broken Bow is the county seat of Custer County (their courthouse is celebrating its centennial this year) and home to their county museum.  There are some interesting stories here, along with volunteers who want to do nothing more than tell you about them.  For instance, the oldest white community in the county is Westock.  Problem was when the railroad came through it was run a mile away (as the crow flies, three miles by road) and on the other side of the river from Westock, so the town fathers and mothers literally picked the town up and moved it to what is now called Comstock.  They did this while the river was frozen and moved buildings by rolling them on logs.  (Where they got the logs for this little undertaking is a good question but one I forgot to ask until after I had left Broken Bow.)  Another interesting thing about the museum is that they have a great collection of photographs by Solomon Butcher, an early photographer who documented 19th century sod houses; the museum worked with the Smithsonian on a study of the types of fencing used by settlers in Greater Nebraska.

West of Broken Bow is the Nebraska National Forest.  Yes, you read that correctly.  It is either the largest or only hand-planted national forest, depending on one's source of information.  It's not very big, but it's nice that Nebraska has its own national forest.

One thing you can say about the Sandhills:  there are a lot of them, and it takes a while to drive past them all.  My plan had been to see Carhenge, in Alliance.  (I will not tell you what Carhenge is so that you have to click on the link to see the picture.)  Around 4 p.m., when the sun was starting to wane and I was still two hours from Alliance (did I mention there are a lot of sandhills?), I realized that I was not going to make Alliance before sunset.  Still, I pressed on - partly because once I begin executing a plan very little can stop it, partly because by the time I came to that realization it looked like the best road south was out of Alliance, and partly because I really did want to see Carhenge since I was in the general vicinity.  It took me a couple of drives by the place to actually find it (thank goodness for my trusty Android and Google Maps) but I did, and luckily the parking lot was near the road and the monument was near the parking lot so I could see it in my headlights.  However, you will understand why I didn't get a picture!

It was a little discouraging to learn that I was still four hours from Denver, having already spent ten hours travelling (probably eight of that was driving).  Surprisingly, the last four hours went pretty fast, however, and I made it to my friend, Tom's, in the foothills of the Rockies safe and sound, thanks to the magic of mobile technology.

Leaving Omaha, Part I

Time moves at the strangest pace.  It seems both like only yesterday and a long, long time ago that I arrived in Omaha.  In objective terms, I have been here 20 days.  On Monday ("today" by the time I publish this little missive), the 21st day, I am driving to Denver via the Nebraska Sandhills. 

That is not the most direct route, but it's not very far out of the way, and I appreciate my brother suggesting it.  As he said, "when are you going to be driving that way again?" And I remembered my thought from the Mississippi River which probably should be the theme (or at least the subtitle) for this journey:  why wouldn't I do it?  And so I am.

While in Omaha, I have reconnected with a bunch of friends (one of whom I haven't seen since the Clinton Administration), attended a bridal shower for the first person in the next generation of cousins to be married off, enjoyed Thanksgiving with most of my nuclear family and their families [To be clear: one of my sisters and her family couldn't make it to Omaha for Thanksgiving. Thus my use of the word "most." It wasn't like I enjoyed only part of the family who was present. Just wanted to avoid any misunderstandings], and spent a lot of time with my brother and his family and my parents.  I'll be back in Omaha later in the month for Christmas (hence "Part I" of the title).

I had hoped to have a blog post entitled "Adventures in Babysitting" based on two consecutive nights of watching the kids.  They are 12, 10 and 6.  But the nights were entirely without incident and most pleasant, so there wasn't much to report.  It's fun to watch James Bond movies with 12-year-old boys (my nephew had a buddy over one night) because they are completely grossed out by the romance parts.  That really was the only item of note at all.  And that's a good thing - I leave the true babysitting adventures for my birth sister, Elisabeth Shue.

While here I also picked up a great phrase.  Sunday we went to Hot Shops, which is a very cool art facility downtown.  One of the artists (a painter named John Boro - credit where credit is due), who looked to be in his 40's or 50's, said that he had only been painting for a few years since he had "caught a second wind in my life."  I like that phrase a lot.

I do want to publish a couple of pictures.  The first is in my niece's room.  She's six, and has the best collection of tutus I've ever seen.  Plus a baseball cap.  This gives you a good, if incomplete, sense of my niece.

The second is a sign for a bar near the neighborhood I grew up.  This is a place I can never enter.

The Interlude Lounge has been on Pacific Street since at least 1969 (when we moved to Omaha).  It is how I learned the word ("interlude," not "lounge.")  It also gave me a permanent connotation for that word (either "interlude" or "lounge") as something both tawdry and fascinating.  I imagined red velvet booths, candles in red glass holders, and patrons with a sort of faded glamour (along the lines of Norma Desmond or Baby Jane - "Mad Men" meets Nighthawks).  The bar is about half a mile from my brother's house - in fact, I took this picture as I was walking by it to meet my mom for lunch at a liquor store (true - and not at all weird or pathetic although I will admit it sounds that way.)  A couple of years ago I thought about having a drink at the Interlude, but realized that it is highly unlikely the place would live up to my childhood expectations.  For instance, any women there would be unlikely to have big sixties hair and slightly soiled white gloves.  No one would be smoking (since Omaha has a ban).  They might not even have candles on the tables.  In fact, it is probably like any bar I've ever been in - which would bitterly disappoint.  So I will never go inside the Interlude Lounge in order to protect my one remaining childhood fantasy.

Okay, it's probably not my only remaining childhood fantasy, since I still believe in things like justice and the good guy winning.  But it's the only one still clothed in red velvet, and that's the way it is going to stay.