Crossing Nebraska

Early this morning, we left North Platte.  With about 140 trains passing through here a day, it is home of the largest railroad yard in the word.  We enjoyed leaving the Interstate system today and traveling along the small roads that run parallel to the railroad tracks,  Often we would pass a new train every 10 to 20 minutes.  We went through endless little towns with populations like 234, 563, 1,319, etc., as we continued east across Nebraska.  We didn’t see a single fast food place or national chain store in any of these towns but all had a grain elevator like this one outside of Uncle Neal’s Country Convenience Store in Lexington, Nebraska. 

We were also really happy to be able to stop and visit our Alaskan friends, Chuck and Patricia Brashears, for about 2 1/2 hours today.

When we stopped for the night just outside of Sioux City, Iowa, we asked about places to eat and were referred to Crystal Café – just past the weighing station. When we got there, I didn’t even want to go in but Meg was hungry, went in to look and came back saying it looked and smelled good.  I still wasn’t convinced but went in. Well, it was good.  I tried a piece of one of their homemade pies called “Forest Fruits”, made from rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries, and black cherries, and it was great.  While waiting for Meg to finish hers, I want over to look at some framed articles on the wall.  Who would have guessed the Crystal Café was the only restaurant in Nebraska that made Gourmet Magazine’s, “Best Roadside Food in America” list.  I was somewhat pleased to read that the Gourmet Magazine writer had the same reaction as I did when he pulled up in front of the place and saw it was a truck stop with lots of rumbling big trucks parked around the area.

Nebraska

We drove across Wyoming (a big state) and we are staying in North Platte, Nebraska this evening. North Platte is home to the largest railroad yard in the world. Interesting! Mostly we share the road with endless fleets of long haul trucks.  There seem to be about equal numbers of them hauling loads east and west.  At this time, West Wyoming and Eastern Nebraska have continuous strong winds blowing large numbers of tumbleweeds across the road.  At times  I felt like Captain Kirk trying to maneuver the USS Enterprise through an asteroid belt.

Our basic routine this trip is to travel about 500 miles a day, and to stop and take a break every two hours, whether we need it or not. And we  exercise at each break – with a little hike, or some Tai Chi, etc. We find this bit of exercise really makes the trip feel more comfortable and we don’t end up at the end of the day feeling all cramped up from too much car time.

Many of the rest stops on this route have a hiking trail like this one.
About half way up this trail, we came upon this little sign which was fairly common the last couple days and I practiced a little Tai Chi.

From above we could look down on the rest stop and I-80.

Heading East

At 0730 this morning, we pulled into our neighborhood McDonalds and we each got a large coffee. From there we started driving east out of Boise. Several hours later we turned south and crossed into Utah. We were surprised to find they recently increased the speed limit to 80 mph here. We continued south to Ogden, UT and turned east again toward Wyoming. We are spending the night in Rock Springs, WY.