{"id":8633,"date":"2017-05-01T10:00:06","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T15:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=8633"},"modified":"2017-04-18T01:10:01","modified_gmt":"2017-04-18T06:10:01","slug":"great-plains-trip-day-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2017\/05\/great-plains-trip-day-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Plains Trip Day 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nAugust 6, 2016:<\/strong> An overhead sign tells US 30 travelers they’ve crossed the 100th Meridian in Cozad, Nebraska.<\/em><\/p>\n

Grand Island, Nebraska \u2014<\/strong> Of things that could go “wrong” on my trip without being time-consuming or truly tragic, three of them happened on this leg. It rained, I missed a clinching segment, and the GPS trip-tracker had a brain fart. But I also experienced some things that are what the United States is all about.<\/p>\n

\"counter06\"<\/p>\n

Route: Old NE 71, US 30, L51B, I-80 (exits 133 to 145), L51C, US 30<\/p>\n

There was sporadic rain after Kimball, and for much of the morning. In Sidney, I stopped at Cabela\u2019s \u2014 not just any Cabela’s, but the flagship store \u2014 and took some pictures of the mounts inside. Sadly, Cabela’s future as a Nebraska business icon<\/a> is likely on borrowed time. Between Cabela’s and ConAgra<\/a>, if the Nebraska Unicameral could ban activist hedge funds, I’m sure plenty would back the move.<\/p>\n

\"\"Cabela’s flagship store and headquarters are just off I-80 in Sidney, Nebraska.<\/em><\/p>\n

After more rain it cleared up between Chappell and Brule, so I got some pictures of US 138\u2019s east end<\/a> (including a mistaken NE 138 on one sign). I was intending to find the school in Brule and once I got there, there was some event going in the park. I had stumbled onto Brule Day, a small-town festival. A sloppy joe with ice cream for $5? Absolutely! And then the PIE. Rhubarb. Peach. Cherry. America at its greatest. I left Brule at 1 MDT and got gas in Ogallala at the end of US 26.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAn old alignment of the Lincoln Highway runs through Brule, Nebraska; US 30 runs on the south side of town.<\/em><\/p>\n

US 30 looked drivable between Roscoe and Paxton, but \u2026 it was closed. I followed the detour, depriving myself of the chance to clinch US 30 in Nebraska, so it remains my only gap between WY 34 and Pittsburgh. In North Platte, I must have missed a sign for the Golden Spike Tower, and had to do a GPS search. Doing that either nuked everything I had done earlier in the day, OR kicked it back into gear, but either way, everything from Kimball to North Platte was unavailable when I retrieved the data.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nD’oh! This prevented my clinching of US 30 in Nebraska.<\/em><\/p>\n

Still cloudy at Golden Spike Center. I spent much of an hour watching video about North Platte Canteen during WWII<\/a>. The city and surrounding area went all out to give traveling service members some home cooking and hospitality during the war. Two months later, when I went to the World War II Museum in New Orleans, the orientation was in a “train car” with “North Platte” written on the side. So if you go, now you know why.<\/p>\n

\"\"Bailey Yard as seen from Golden Spike Tower, North Platte, Nebraska.<\/em><\/p>\n

From the observation tower I looked out at Bailey Yard. Activity might not have been as high as usual since it was a Saturday, but still, that’s a lot of trains and a lot of tracks. I exited to the west, got back to 30, then went back east again, and never got away from 30 the rest of the day.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nI also stopped at the relocated Pony Express station at the city park in Gothenburg.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August 6, 2016: An overhead sign tells US 30 travelers they’ve crossed the 100th Meridian in Cozad, Nebraska. Grand Island, Nebraska \u2014 Of things that could go “wrong” on my trip without being time-consuming or truly tragic, three of them … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8633"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8691,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8633\/revisions\/8691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}