We have left the desert behind. East of Cheyenne (but before Nebraska)
we hit farmland and the trademark of the midwest; water towers. What is
it with those water towers? We’re still at some elevation but a lot of
the flat landscape has been converted to farmland. We’re just now going
through Pine Bluff and it looks like it will be the last bump in the
landscape until the hills of Wisconsin. Jamie promises hills in
northern WI and I’m holding him to that. All we can see for now is flat
flat flat and the maps give us no reason to hope for anything
different. Straight lines abound on the maps.
We’ve changed our plans and have decided to bypass Sioux Falls and head
straight for Michigan. We are hoping to spend tonight in Grand Island,
Nebraska; tomorrow in bumfuck Iowa; head up 35 to Minnesota and then 90
over to Wisconsin. We’re thinking we’ll spend the 20th with Jamie’s mom
in Wisconsin.
My blood seems to be getting thicker; as I loaded up the car this
morning (another late start and we didn’t get on the road until 7:45) I
told Jamie it was "much" warmer and I thought the glow plugs didn’t need
to be warmed up as much (diesel engine). It took a while to warm up the
glow plugs though and we found the reason; it was 33 degrees. It must
have been in the 20’s or teens yesterday morning. I can’t wait until
we’re headed for Mexico. 
Jamie watched the news last night and said
it looked like a snowstorm would be hitting WI by the end of next week.
We hope to be in IL spending TDay with my sister (outside of Chicago) so
there is a chance we could get snowed in. Should be interesting…
The rest areas seem to come much quicker here in Nebraska; up til now
they’ve been every 100 miles or so, but we’ve already seen 2 in 45
minutes of driving. About 100 miles into Nebraska and we have rain.
Better rain than snow; we’ve been gradually coming down in altitude
since Cheyenne. By the time we hit Omaha we’ll have come down 6000 ft.
Unlike the Sierras and west, the descent is very gradual so that you
really don’t even notice it. Obviously, no earthquakes out here or
continental plates to bump up against each other. Kids are doing well;
we got up late (6:30) and so far no-one has taken a nap. I think we
might do better to get up much earlier; we have lots of books on tape
and they play very well together, but still get bored. I saw some
laptop with pocket contraptions at Target in Cheyenne and I think I’ll
try to get some for the girls. They’d be able to draw and hopefully the
toys will stop flying about the van.
The rain makes it easy to see the screen; I should be grateful for
that…one thing about towns in the midwest; when the town ends it is
really over. In the bay area, you can go from Grass Valley to San Jose
(aobut 3 hours) with a couple small breaks in urbanization. There are
some fields outside of Davis and Vacaville but it is pretty much
constant strip malls, auto malls, homes and business for hundreds of
miles. Out here the city ends abruptly and agriculture stretches for
miles and miles and miles.
Stopped at a grocery store in North Platte (are there really only TWO in
the whole town???) and it seems that the organic produce has come to an
end. We’ve been able to find organic carrots (at the least) up til
now. The prices are also quite high. Convention produce out here is
higher in price than organic produce in the Bay Area.
The girls never seem to tire of pretending they are Becca (cousin Becky
from CA – 1 year old) or talking about her. She is constantly in their
thoughts. I’m going to have to keep a camera at the ready; this is the
3rd time we’ve seen llamas on our trip – by the side of the road. Last
tank of gas got us 21.1mpg. Almost to Kearny NE where we’ll spend the
night at a really nice motel. Outdoor, indoor and wading pools, free
hot breakfast, whirlpool, large rooms, all for $62 (if we can believe
the AAA tourbook). Hee hee; we got it for $55.
