We knew today was going to be The Boring Day, and we're happy to have survived it without either of us falling asleep, driving off the road, and hitting a cow. We'd decided to skip Omaha (well, downtown Omaha) and Lincoln, the two Nebraska cities any one has heard of. This was a strategic decision based on the amount of time we had and wanting to get to the scenery of South Dakota. Mostly a driving day...no senior-citizen jazz bands, no gun-toting busboys, but we did manage to amuse ourselves. Somehow, we always do.

Useless factoids

The trip started uneventful, so here are some tidbits from previous days we forgot to tell you:

* Our favorite town name so far is Gnaw Bone, Indiana.

* You can play the Iowa lottery for $0.25. You don't scratch the tickets with a coin, you pull little tabs to reveal
whether you've won or not. I won $2. Eight times my initial investment! ;)

* The most amusing thing sold in a public restroom vending machine so far (discovered by Rick, as women's rooms never sell the weird stuff) is a "Freedom Tickler" in red white and blue packaging. Because of the war, you see, we can't call them "French" ticklers anymore. I think the "Freedom fries" thing is losing steam, by the way, as we've been offered only "fries" and, ahem, "American fries" so far.

* We've got four states to go in license plate bingo. I saw a Hawaii plate in Iowa, but Rick was asleep and insisted I must have seen it wrong. What would a Hawaiian be doing in Iowa? I concocted an elaborate story about the Hawaiian college student at Grinnell College. Since then, Rick's father has emailed us a photo of his own Hawaii plate, so there can be no debate. We may need someone from Delaware to send us one by the end of the trip.

Nebraska!

Teri had warned us that you can stand in one end of Nebraska and see clear to the other end. That's not far off. Even the crops seem to disappear, and there's nothing but cows, cows, cows. It was weirdly sandy; Rick said it looked like someone had thrown some green paint on Arizona.

First, we attempted to amuse ourselves by pulling into a rest stop that advertised a sculpture garden. Ha ha. A few shapeless modern art statues clumped together, supposedly illustrating "Crossing the Plains." There are ten such sculptures throughout the state to commemorate the bicentennial, but one was probably enough.

Nebraska's main claim to fame seems to be all the people that passed through on the way to somewhere else. The Oregon Trail, the Pony Express, etc. We did get off the road to see an original Pony Express station in Gothenburg, a town settled by Swedes that's also known for the Sod House museum. The Pony Express station, which has been restored and moved from its original location is now a shack filled with half historical memorabilia and half tourist schwag. The tourist guide inside was very friendly and cheery, but not eccentric -- a rare commodity on our travels! She seemed beyond thrilled to have visitors from Boston, and regaled us with Pony Express trivia. It only lasted 18 months, the investors lost 100,000, and only one rider was actually scalped by Indians. Kind of makes you appreciate the post office. Never thought I'd say that. Moving on...

Midwest brewpubs redeemed

We like our gift beer from Indiana, but were frankly a bit disappointed in the brewpub where we stopped in Des Moines. (Beer geek: low ABV, wimpy mouthfeel, but pleasant-tasting enough to give us an excuse to get off the road). Around lunchtime, we hit Kearney, NE, home of one or two brewpubs, so we stopped for lunch. The one we chose arbitrarily, Thunderhead Brewing, was actually great. Another college town, so we had an appropriately pierced waiter and ate next to a table of students, and another table feeding a professor and his wife. We declared Kearney quiet but cool, bought a souvenir pint glass, and got back on the road.

Then, more cows. I drove for a while and we eventually hit a "scenic route" (part of the former Oregon trail) that was slower than the interstate but actually had some frickin' hills. We saw a few astoundingly long freight trains and a few fields filled with tractor parts. We made it to Chimney Rock, a landmark for the pioneer dudes passing through on their way to somewhere else.

We were tired and wanted to give ourselves (and Tabitha) an early check-in, so we decided to postpone Carhenge until tomorrow and stay in the town near it, Alliance. The Super 8 here has a truly fascist pet policy (they throw you out if they find one they didn't give you permission to have there; your pet is stupidly supposed to remain in a cage, though we skipped that rule)and there's a $20 fine for opening the fridge in the lobby. Bizzare, but they do offer high-speed Net access and a coffee maker in the room. That'll do.

Tomorrow: Stonehenge made of cars, South Dakota!