sgmrt: nebraska

[ljplicease]

Western Nebraska, unsurprisingly, looks a lot like eastern Wyoming. The rolling yellow carpet continues well on into the state. There are lots of cows and horses and I even saw some sheep. Most of the cars on I-80 came from out of state. I have actually been here once before when I drove to Salt Lake from New York. Unfortunately I was in a rush so the only thing that I did was sleep in a hotel in Omaha. This time I decided to re-route my whole trip through Nebraska instead of Colorado (which I have already been too many times) in order to see something reasonably extreme.

Panorama Point, the highest point in all of Nebraska was just as underwhelming as I hoping it would be. Everything else in the state was literally downhill from there. It doesn’t look that much higher than everything around it, in fact if you went west or south you probably wouldn’t have to go far to find something higher, but by then you’d be in Colorado or Wyoming. If the marker weren’t there you’d not be able to tell that there was anything remarkable about the place. It was “Discovered” in 1951 by Art Hendrickson and Claude Alden. My guess is that in a state so flat the first thing you go looking for is not the highest spot in it.

One thing that people who are just a little OCD like to do is some specific activity in every state. I ran into someone outside of the Utah capitol building whose OCD goal was to see every capitol in each of the 50 states. Some people go to Panorama Point in an effort to visit the highest point in every state. Why, I ask, be so consistent. I am going to do something different in every state that I haven’t already been to. Jon Stewart is advocating reasonableness in his rally for sanity, so I’m not going to visit the highest point in Alaska (Mt. McKinley at 20,320 feet) because that would be an insane and unreasonable extreme. Instead I’ve now been to the highest point in Nebraska, a modest and quite reasonable 5,424 feet above sea level.

There was a small heard of buffalo just down the hill behind a wire fence when I got there. They got spooked and ran north away from me while I was there. It sort of reminded me of Antelope Island with the yellow grass and the buffalo. Well except for the island part.

Driving to the highest point was a surprisingly adventurous trek down several lonely dirt roads. The last track had moderate ruts that made me a little nervous given the clearance on my vehicle. Entrance to the dirt road required a $3 donation. It had rained early in the morning, leaving the ground damp. There is a inscribed rock to let you know where you are, and a log book to sign. Apparently I was the first person there today. There was only one other party yesterday. My car is coated in dirt and now needs a wash.

Most of the rest of the day was spent driving. There were a few things that I would have liked to stopped and seen, but I didn’t have much time and it all went by so fast. My friend and Nebraska native told me that I was the first person to say that and that “most people say Nebraska is soooo slow and boring :)”

Also I dunno if it has something to do with Wyoming and Nebraska, but the public bathrooms I have been too on this trip so far have all been really clean! I drove about 487.8 miles today, 943 miles in total.