Heading Northeast from Denver on Hwy 76 to I-80.

By evening we reached North Platte, Nebraska.  We leave I-80, cross the Platte River, and stop at a big Wally to buy chicken thighs and ice and other supplies.  Onward.

It is time to start looking for our spot and it ain’t easy.  Everything is farmed and fenced.  Finally we come across a remnant of old highway between Hwy 30 and a fence.  It isn’t off the highway much but since I-80 is taking most of the traffic Hwy 30 has very little but man-o-man are there trains!  A long coal train goes by what seems like every 15 minutes.  Unbelievable.

I pop the top, get out the lawn furniture and fire up the Barbee.  Lolli gets the potatoes and sweet corn going on the stove.

It starts to rain.  We bring the table inside and have a nice dinner.  Someone stops in a car, pulls in a ways, and looks at us.  They drive a bit closer and stop.  Lolli says it looks like a woman driver and a short person or kid in the passenger seat.  I ignore them and finally they back up and leave.  We sit and read our books.

Tourists or Terrorists.  You be the judge!
"That vehicle looks mighty fishy to me, Marge!"

Soon the sheriff arrives.  He gets out of his car and talks to us.  He asks if we are planning to stay the night.

"We are".

  He says we can’t do that.  We are parked too close to the airport.  Terrorists concerns and what-not.

"You’re kidding!"

"Nope.  The North Platte airport is right over there.  Sorry.  A concerned citizen called in."

We talk some more and he asks to see a drivers license.  I produce mine.  He writes down the information.  I show him my Veterans Administration card for good measure!

We ask if there is any place around we could camp at.  He said the town of Maxwell is just up the road, "A small town with nice people".  We can park at the city park.  He will call ahead and let them know we're coming..  We pack up and head for Maxwell.

Just before Maxwell I see a side road to a historical marker and think about camping there, it is off the beaten path but Lolli says no!  We better do what we agreed to do with the sheriff.  We drive the streets of Maxwell – no park.  There are a bunch of fireworks being shot off on the other side of the railroad tracks, probably in the city park.  I want to go to the historical marker but Lolli still says no.

I stop at the café and ask the young girl where the city park is.  “Across the tracks”.

Over the tracks we go and soon I see a ball field.  We drive in through the gate and park by the restrooms.  Kids are blowing off fireworks just up the street.

We pop the top and settle in.  Our Field of Dreams.

The locals set off some more fireworks.  Then we see big aerial bursts off in the distance at the next town and then nature lets off a big one in the sky, good old Nebraska lightening and thunder.  Soon Lolli and I are keeping score.  Humans 1, Nature 4.  Then the humans come back with some high priced spectacular bursts which sort of puts them ahead and then nature lets loose,  a real ripper!  Quite fun!

We wake to an overcast day.  I fly my electric wing over the football field and through the goal posts once.  We use the restrooms and hit the road.

July 5

We drive east on Hwy 30 past towns of my memory.  Kearny, (No expresso) – even though it is a college town.  Grand Island; "Blue Moon Espresso".  Wonderful!  Interesting looking town.  Columbus.  Then Schuyler.  There is a new bypass that totally skips Schuler.

Then the wee village of Rogers, still the same and then… North Bend.

When I left in 1957 the population was 810.  Now it is 1213!

The water tower.

The Corner Café, closed, the bank on the left, the same, Thompsen's blacksmith shop now Voplenskis.  Moser Memorial Home.  Onward to the pop corn plant… and…

there it is… and it is a sad looking affair; the house, where we lived, the front yard and the north side yard are completely replaced with a concrete block building.  The original processing plant is still there.  No corn cribs remain at all.  The office and truck scale exist and the Quonset hut, way at the back, remains.  A guy was doing some cleaning up and said it was alright to look around.  Lolli and I walk around and look.  Pretty sad.  The ditch is filled in, the cotton wood tree and the mulberry trees are gone.  The Quonset hut that was the tractor and truck and workshop seems to be in the right spot but looks different.  I don’t remember the concrete block walls.  The barn and corral is gone.  Might be a good location for a Steven King movie now.

We drive on to see other memories.  The house where I first saw TV still exists and then, unbelievably,

the old Boy Scout hall is still there!  To the south of it is a new outdoor swimming pool facility taking up a lot of the old park where we used to play capture the flag.  The old brick school is gone, an all new elementary school is in it’s place.  A new high school is located in the north west part of town, I'm told.  The Catholic Church, where all the pretty girls went, looks exactly the same.  The Methodist Church, where dweebs like me and my brother went,  is totally rebuilt.

There is a new bridge over the Platte River to Morse Bluff.

The drive along the base of the hill to Indian Peak is the same but I don’t know where we used to park and climb through the fence during our Scouting outings.

No band stand in Morse Bluff.  At least not where I thought it would be.

We cross  the bridge back into North Bend.  I think about parking down by the river but it is too muddy.

In town I talk to store owner Doug Wamburg.  He helps me get the address of some of my old friends who no longer live in town.

On to Freemont, Nebraska, a town I lived in from two years old until the middle of my third grade.

Ronnie
Freemont, Nebraska 1944

After finding the intersection of the Burlington and the Union Pacific rail road tracks I think I find the old house.  It is much modified.  The owners wonder who that goofy looking guy is that keeps looking at them.  I talk to them an reassure them that I am not a terrorist!

Lolli sees a barbeque stand and we buy barbeque and potatoes and ranch dressing and then drive to the State Lakes campground west of Freemont, pay the $10.00 for a camp spot, use the shower.

Not too bad.  There are lightening bugs (Fire Fly's) in the evening after dark.  Lolli had never seen them before.  It rains during the night.  Trains and fire engines rouse us in the morning. 

July 6,

Back to North Bend after a lazy get-up.

The Corner Café is OPEN!  We have a late breakfast around 11:00 AM and watch the place start filling up with locals for lunch.  After breakfast we walk Main Street.  We buy some postcards at the drug store.  Revisited the pop corn plant.  Visited the library and get a couple submission forms for the 150 year history book project.  The book will come out in 2006.  I lived in North Bend during the 100 year Centennial but I won't be there for the 150th!  I might submit some stories though.

Like my story about Ernie Hensel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ernie was the Scout Master.  He would load us up in his pick-up truck and drive us over to Indian Peak for a camping weekend.  He would park the truck beside the county road and we would unload, climb through the barbed wire fence, and trudge up the hill to Indian Peak.  Us old timers would camp up on the hillside and the new guys would camp down on the meadow.  Ernie Hensel would set up his pup tent and army cot while the rest of us made do with blankets and tarps.  All night, while Ernie slept, war would rage between the new guys and the old timers; pissing on each others campfires and throwing dirt clods at each other.  We would return to North Bend Sunday afternoon red-eyed, smelling like smoke, with holes burned through our clothes and blankets.

It was great!

One time, close to the 4th of July, Ernie took us camping at Indian Peak and Gary Thompson tossed a fire cracker under Ernie's cot while he was sleeping.

Boom!

Ernie come ripping out of his tent and shouted, "Alright you assholes, pack up!  We are going back to town!

We packed up and Ernie drove us into town, unloaded us and said, "That's it.  I quit!".

The thing is... we never told anyone.  Each Monday evening after dinner we would say, "By mom.  Going to Scouts."

"Okay.  Have a nice time."

And away we would go.  Off into the night to the locked Scout Hall where we would all gather up and play capture the flag in the city park until it was way past bed time.

Maybe his name wasn't Ernie Hensel.  But I remember the firecracker!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I did find one classmate who now owns Sonny Thompsen's blacksmith shop.

I looked inside.  Nothing had changed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We left North Bend and headed west for the first time in over a month.  By evening we were back in Maxwell.  A coach and a high school foot ball team was practicing their play list.  We set up camp, off to one side of the park, ate our munchies, and watched them play.  The breakfast we enjoyed at the Corner Café more than lasted through the day.

When practice ended I got out my flying wing and "flanged" it.  We had been watching a group of homing pigeons circling round and round north of the ball field.  I flew up amongst them!  They would scatter but then regroup and continues circling.  I flew three times and caught my wing each time when landing.  The coach stopped by and admitted to owning George, the mule, we had been hearing hee-haw.

Up in the morning and on the road around 9:30.  Drive, drive, drive.  All on Hwy 30.  Small towns, one after the other.  From farm land in eastern Nebraska to ranch land in western Nebraska.

We stop in Brule for sausage and eggs, hash browns and toast.  No menu, no jam, no paper bill when we are done.  $13.00.  Reasonably good but slow.  A bunch of local ladies at a table doing the local gossip.  The husband doing the cooking.

Lolli started counting the number of cars on the trains we meet as we drive along and made a list.  Here is the time of occurrence, the type of train, and the number of cars:

All that in under two hours!  And the trains are rolling 24 hours a day... every day of the week!  Just the amount of coal going from Wyoming to some coal fired generator back east was unbelievable!  I wanted to ask where the coal was going but I didn't want to be looked at as a terrorist!  It seems it is best not be too nosy these days!

We knock off early once past Cheyenne, Wyoming.  Up in the hills a ways we come upon a Joshua Tree type area, (granite outcroppings) take a side road, and check out a state forest campground.  $10.00 per site.  We use the facilities but decide to take the washboard road further.  We come upon some side roads and check them out.  Folks are already free camping at various sites.  This is evidently a popular rock climbing area.

Onward and soon we find a suitable spot, pull in and set up.

Good enough.

I saw some fire wood off the downed dead tree nearby but dark clouds arrive and the wind really picks up.  We move into the Vanagon.  It could rain, or not.  This is Colorado and the weather changes every five minutes.

July 8

We pack and get a jump on the drive.  Leave around 7:30 AM  and drive, drive, drive.  Across Wyoming from east to west, I-80 all the way.  Quite boring.

Late afternoon we enter Utah.  I should have got some gas before rushing on towards Salt Lake.  Gas stations become far and wee.  Finally we see a sign indicating gas at the next off ramp in the town of Echo.  The station is a small one, locked, with a sign saying if you need gas go to the store.  I walk over to the store and the old fart says the next gas is 25 miles.  I tell him I will take $20.00 worth.  I walk back to my Vanagon parked by the pump.  Eventually he arrives on his bicycle.  He puts in $20 worth and my tank gauge shows just over half full.  I think he might be a Jack Mormon.

We decide to continue on the secondary highway but soon end up back on I-84.  We take a few off ramps hoping to find our spot for the night by the river.  Finally we find a remnant of the original highway beside the freeway in a narrow canyon along with the train tracks and the river!  We find a well used spot under some trees by the river with traffic roaring by on the viaduct, occasional trains but, good enough.

We have a nice evening beside the small river.  Enjoy our taco’s and call it a night, and then "Mousey" shows up.  Lolli is propped up in bed reading her book with her head lamp and Mousey shows up on the storage counter beside her!  Eeeek!

Not much I can do but change sides with Lolli.  I hope it goes back to its family and doesn’t decide to travel with us.

A rather fretful nights sleep even without the mouse.  Warm, muggy, mosquitoes, and the close thunder of trucks on the nearby freeway and the occasional train.  But, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln....!

Because of our stop for gas in Echo and our subsequent camp spot by the river, we continue on out the mouth of the canyon and down into Odgen, Utah.  Then around the edge of the huge valley of Salt Lake past miles of "Starter Castles", MacMansions", and major freeway building to I-80 and the edge of the city of Salt Lake.  Don't these folks know it is hard times?  Past the airport and then along the Great Salt Lake itself.  Then miles and miles of salt basin driving to Wendover, Nevada.  Then up into basin and range driving to Elko.

Gas and groceries in Elko and then north the fifty miles to Tuscarora to visit our friends Ron and Gail.

Our usual camping spot ready for us!

We visit and look at the various improvements around their casa.  Take a shower, fly my electric wing; a night hawk takes out after it!  Enchiladas and conversation with Ron and Gail and John and Laura; some new homeowners in Tuscarora.  Population 12.

July 10

Tuscarora.  Blue skies, morning sun.  No trains, cars, trucks or roaring river.  Perfect sleeping.  We are going to hang out for a day of rest.  I am going to change my oil and filter; take it easy.  We will head for home tomorrow.  The bad news is, we do have a mouse.  I heard it during the night different times and this morning I found our toilet paper roll shredded!

Barbequed chicken and corn and vegetables this evening with mashed potatoes.

July 11

For some reason my computer decided to come back to life yesterday so I downloaded 283 e-mails and burned a disk of the photos I have taken on this trip.  I have not shut the computer off and this morning I transcribed all my hand written notes I have made since the computer crapped out in Arrow, Colorado!

Today is Sunday.  We need to be home by Tuesday.  We have 625 miles to go or about 12 hours of driving.

We have lunch with Gail and then hit the road.

On our way to Elko we spot these welded figures on top of a barrel mailbox.

Into Elko for Lattes, groceries, ice and a mouse trap!.  On to Winnemucca.  Gas up in Winnemucca and onward.  Around 5:00 PM I noticed a dam reservoir.  A sign mentions a  campground.  Not a lot of options between Winnemucca and Reno that might have a shade tree!  We pulled in and check it out.  A ten bucks a night campground by the river. 

Lots of mosquitoes but we find a campsite with shade somewhat out in the open and by golly, good enough.  There is a free shower at the outhouse, once we figure out how to turn it on!.

Lolli is prepping tacos.  Dinner soon.  Not a cloud in the sky.  83 degrees at 7:05 PM.

We enjoy a peaceful night and in the morning, after I bury the mouse,  head for our friends Doug and Jan in Redwood Valley, Californie.

It takes a bunch of driving to get there but it is a piece of cake.  We arrive in time for dinner.  Perfect!

Good conversation, our last night of sleeping in the Vanagon.  Only one more "get up" before home.

July 13

We arrive in Fort Bragg by noon!  Coastal fog!  Get out the jackets!

5,243 miles under our belt!  The ol' Vanagon/Subaru never missed a beat!  Trouble free motoring.  That's all I ask!