Day 17: Look, Ma! One Hand!

Today we drove through Nebraska, all day long. It was a planned 4.5-hour trip, but with stops for conference calls it took us from 9 to 5. Thanks to 244 miles of straight and flat Nebraska interstate 80, it was low-stress and allowed driving mostly with one hand vs. white knuckling it over windy mountain passes in the West.

In addition to the cattle guards, my other new observations from driving in this part of the country are the barricades to close the highways (for snow, I’m assuming) and the beautiful, small sunflower-type wild plant that we continue to see along the highways.

While at a rest stop for one of the calls, we saw a truck carrying piglets. It was the same size as the cow trailers (which we have also seen tons of), but they have been mostly empty on our Nebraska leg. To hear, see and smell those little piglets was both interesting and very sad; they were so cramped in there. At the rest stop we also saw two base pieces of a Vestas windmill (same brand as Cooper’s lego set), which was super cool to see. We asked the driver and apparently most windmills use 3-4 of these base pieces.

Highlights of the day were getting to stay at our first “first come first serve” campground, Walnut Creek, even though we didn’t arrive until after 3 p.m. It was full by 5, so we really lucked out. It’s only $16 for a nice spot, but it’s electric-only, so had to make a dump stop and fill with water before parking for the three days we’ll be here. We had another first: the boys and Rob all showered while we were at the dump station so we could immediately empty and have a completely empty gray tank to start our stay.

After finally getting parked we headed off for an amazing family bike ride around a lake across the street. Unfortunately, Nicholas took his second fall of the day, but was back in good spirits after a yummy meal cooked by Rob: hot dogs, spinach and cheesy pasta. Have I mentioned how much the boys have been falling this trip? It is crazy–both have had bandaids on their knees more often than not. Tripping while running, sliding in gravel, and every other way to fall off a bike. Poor guys–we are hoping this unfortunate phase passes very soon!