Across the plains

I keep forgetting that Denver is the “Mile High City.” However, as you drive east the land becomes flat almost immediately and you realize you are out of the mountains and into the plains! I was still in the mood to get off the Interstate, so after a homey breakfast and a WiFi break at the library in Ft. Morgan CO, we decided to try Hwy 6. We took I-76 to Sterling to pick it up and it was a real relief to be on a two lane road again. There was hardly any traffic.  There was a small town every ten miles or so whose main feature was the grain elevator. I wonder if they still use those?

There were lots of corn fields, but the corn stalks were dry and brown. We wondered if the crop was harvested and what they did with the corn stalks that were left?  We also noticed that the fields were planted in circles. That left huge pie shaped patches between the fields and nothing seemed to be planted there. Don thought the irrigation systems were set up to better irrigate a circular field.

When we entered Nebraska we started seeing the Runza restaurants. This is a Nebraska specialty – a sandwich made from a specially prepared meat with various toppings. We stopped in Holdredge to try one. It was delicious!

We spent the night in Kearney NE. The next day, Wednesday, October 8, we took it easy. I studied the tour book and found that the Museum of Nebraska Art was here and was well reviewed. And it was free! We spent a couple hours there and it was quite lovely. The art was mostly 20^th century and there was a nice display of Native American artists. The building was the former post office (maybe Santa Monica should look at this for their abandoned historic post office).

Kearney also has a fort (which we didn’t visit), and a giant wooden arch built over I-80. We stopped there, but decided not to pay to go through their exhibit of pioneer life. It would be fun to do on a later trip. We enjoyed walking through the grounds, looking at the maze and the bridge over the lakes.

Highway 6 is parallel to I-80 to the south. Today we went north of I-80 to pick up the Lincoln Highway. That is Hwy 30 through Nebraska and Iowa. The Lincoln Highway was built in the early 1900’s to make it easier for the new motor car to travel from New York to San Francisco – the first transcontinental highway. Most of it is still intact (unlike Route 66). The drive was very much like yesterday, except we had a lot more traffic. One forgets how to pass a slower car, but we quickly remembered the tricks of passing!

Highway 30 parallels the Platte River on the north, so we saw lots of beautiful scenery. It also parallels a main railroad line on the south. We saw lots of trains going in both directions. Some were made up of only coal cars (full going east, empty going west). Some only had single or double layers of container cars. Some consisted of only tankers or only cattle cars. I was interested in this apparent segregation of train traffic! Many of the trains were just parked. We soon found out why – they were laying new ties further up the line. There was so much interesting equipment to see, but no one seemed to be working hard at their job.

We spent the night in Fremont NE and studied the tour book to see what we could do in Iowa the next day.