My Trip Through Nebraska

This past weekend, my friend Hillary and I drove across western Nebraska as part of the Nebraska Passport program. This program has 80 different pitstops in Nebraska that you can check into May-September in order to win prizes. The two of us have now hit 50 of the 80 stops and will be working toward the next 30 in the coming months.

This trip (Wednesday-Saturday) was definitely our biggest feat though. Our route was 1,719 miles (although it was longer than that with stops for food and gas and those few times I missed the turn and made Hillary turn around). We drove through 74 Nebraska towns in 38 counties. I have personally been to 34 U.S. states and the beautiful country of Scotland, but let me tell you this trip through Nebraska definitely was not dull, even in comparison. We saw forests and sandhills and badlands and grasslands. We drove up in down enormous hills and then on miles of flat land. We saw buttes and bluffs (and had to look up the difference). It was a really cool trip getting to know all corners of the state.

I wish I had more pictures of the trip, but most of the time I was trying to navigate tricky roads or wait for cell phone service so I could use Google Maps. Pictures wouldn't have done a lot of my trip justice anyway. I do have a short snapchat video from Thursday below.

Here were some highlights:

1. On Thursday morning, we had breakfast at this cute little place called 4th Avenue Coffee in Holdrege and then stopped at Awarri Dunes north of Axtell. Both of these places are very near my hometown and I had never been.

2. We stayed at a cabin in Long Pine and took a walk on the old railroad bridge and it was absolutely gorgeous. This is probably the only time in the trip where we just sat silently and looked around for a long period of time.

3. The Niobrara is not over-hyped. It's gorgeous and I'd love to come back sometime to tube down it.

4. While I assured Hillary before we started that any of the Passport stops must be on paved roads, I was completely and utterly wrong. No wonder this thing happens in the summer because I don't think you could get there in the winter. Wandering through dirt and mud and sand and gravel was fun though because we kept wondering what would be around the next curve or hill.

5. Oh the Badlands. Although this was one of the worst roads, it was absolutely beautiful. At the end of the trip, we both agreed this was probably the most impressive spot. We ate at the Drifter's Cookshack out there and it was incredible.

6. We ate a lot of home-cooked food and Nebraskans can sure make it. Only two times on the trip did we eat fast food. We had breakfast at a bed and breakfast in Imperial and I even ate a buffalo burger (actually bison but we didn't correct them haha) in the badlands.

7. Scotts Bluff is impressive. Chimney Rock not so much. But we didn't get right up next to Chimney Rock either so maybe we missed the full experience.

8. There are a lot of B towns in Nebraska. It's a bit confusing differentiating between Bartlett, Bancroft, Bridgeport, Bayard, Broken Bow, Bassett, Berea, Berwyn, Brule, and Burwell.

9. We stayed at our first bed and breakfast and even though we were with a bunch of older couples and stood out like a sore thumb, it was a great experience.

10. We climbed into a train at Cody Park in North Platte, which I had never done before.

11. We crashed a wedding! North Platte was a happening place on Saturday with Nebraskaland Days (which we forgot was happening) and at the Buffalo Bill Ranch we walked right up on an outdoor wedding. Oops.