Nebraska - Why?

Sisters' Log - Day Three

"The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never even introduce yourself to had life not done it for you." Kendall Hailey

We forgot to mention yesterday that the best lollipops in the world are at the Mormon Handicraft store in St. George. A sample of flavors include cookies 'n' cream; root beer; butterscotch; watermelon; chocolate banana; cherry; and peanut to name a few. Yes, Gladys, we got you some.

This is the Denver LDS temple. We left Denver without eating breakfast this morning, because we couldn't find the restaurant that the nice hotel lady recommended and we thought that Mrs. Garmin, our GPS unit, would help us. She didn't. The next thing we knew we were on the freeway headed out of town, which then turned in to a tollway. What a great scam! It cost us a total of $7.75 to travel for approximately 30 miles. We'll avoid the tollways from now on--well, no we won't. We don't have any choice in Indiana, so we're breaking our twenties to get one dollar bills and much change. Gas in Denver was $4 per gallon.

Where do we begin? We didn't realize until today that Denver is the end of all mountains everywhere. Let us preface the rest of this blog entry with telling you that Omaha is a lovely city. Rolling green hills, trees in abundance, greenery everywhere--very lovely. And there ends all of the loveliness of Nebraska.

This picture was taken at a Quickie Mart in a small town in Nebraska. Boy Howdy! A picture is worth a thousand words.

Corn is good on the cob, creamed, in a can, frozen, made into oil, made into flour, syrup, pudding, and relish to name few of the perfectly good uses for corn. What corn is not good for is scenery! Have we ever seen corn. We're actually done with Nebraska as far as sight seeing. We don't think we'll ever be back. Tomorrow we see Iowa. So as we were traveling across the entire state the whole live-long day--the longest day of our lives-- we came up with different state mottos for Nebraska. You may choose your favorite:

Nebraska...

a. Why?

b. The Land that Time Forgot (explanation: while we were eating lunch, all of the overhead music was from the '70's. We thought about telling them that new music has been made since then, but decided not to.)

c. Never Saw a Wind it Didn't Like

d. Not for the Easily Bored

e. Nothing Like the Smell of Cow in the Morning

f. If You've Seen One Corn Cob, You've Seen the State

While we were exiting the highway for a potty break (note to self--never do that again), we had to yield to a woman driving her farm equipment down Main Street. We can't make this stuff up. And what's with the highways? All day long it sounded like our tires were falling off. Sandy used to decorate cakes for family occasions, and she said that when you smooth the top of the cake, you dip your icing smoother tool into water and smooth the top. We believe the same principle applies to roads. After pouring whatever materials they use in roads, take the road smoother tool and smooth the top. We're just saying... At least there were cows and road work to break up the monotony of all the miles and miles and miles of corn. Gas in North Platte, Nebraska, was $4.40 per gallon.

Now we're in Iowa at a Country Inn Suites that is literally just on the other side of the welcome to Iowa sign. The sign may be in the parking lot of this motel. If it were ten feet to the west, it would be in Omaha. Gas in Omaha was $4.06 per gallon. We did get the opportunity to go by the Winter Quarters LDS temple, and the Mormon Trail Center and cemetery from 1846. This was an area that Latter Day Saints came to when they were being expelled from Nauvoo, Illinois. They suffered much loss and hardship in this area, and were only here for about a year before they started the trek to Salt Lake City. The cemetery contains the earthly remains of those who did not live long enough to make the trek west. It was a hard, hard winter that year.

Shout out to Savannah--We'll see you on the 16th.

Shout out to Isaiah--Today we only made it through one very wide and boring state -- Nebraska. We did pass through Lincoln, which is the state capitol, and still in corn country.

Shout out to Kobe--We didn't see any video games in Nebraska. Couldn't even use our cell phones to call for help. We couldn't get service. We don't think there are any Play Stations in Nebraska.

Shout out to Jonas--Hollah back young 'un.

Actual conversation today in car. We performed all of our own stunts.

Sandy: "I don't recognize some of this roadkill; and it's not because it's smashed beyond recognition. It's just that we don't have possum in the desert."

Edie: "I hope we didn't have it in our lunches today either."

Y'all come back now, y'hear?