what about the plastic animals?

Nebraska Sandhills

Coal from Wyoming headed east.

Looking west on Rt. 2

Everybody welcome at the prom.

If you've ever driven across Nebraska on I-80 you know what a long and tedious ride that can be.  Much of the interstate was built in the Platte Valley, which probably offers the least scenic view of the state.  A much more pleasant trip can be had by getting off the interstate and driving through the Sandhills. 

The Sandhills are the largest sand dunes in the western hemisphere.  The Sandhills, which were formed during the last Ice Age, are a region of superlatives.  The dunes cover an area of almost 20,000 square miles --roughly the size of Nova Scotia, or Vermont and New Hampshire combined.  They reach a height of 400 feet in places and are up to 20 miles long.  For the most part the dunes have been stabilized by the grass growing on top of them.  There are many spring-fed lakes and streams in the Sandhills.  The wetlands make the Sandhills an important stopover for migrating birds.  There aren't too many people in the Sandhills, but there are over half a million cattle.

As we drove east along Route 2, Ann, Jeff and I stopped at Hyannis and Mullen.  Not only is Mullen the "Biggest Little Town in Hooker County" it is also the "Littlest Big Town in Hooker County" and, well, the only town in Hooker County. 

Mullen was a great place to stop.  We met four friendly Shriners putting up posters for an upcoming Shrine Circus in North Platte.  We loaded up on lunch supplies at Macke's Grocery, bought postcards and plastic animals and talked to Lucy at Lucy's Variety and Gifts, and found us some awesomely delicous peach cobbler at the Sandhills Coffee Mill.

All that in a town of less than 500 people!  There are about 800 people living in Hooker County.  To put that into perspective, Hooker County has more than twice the area of New York City.

Now that we had our lunch supplies it was time to head for a picnic in another unique Nebraska location.

Carhenge

Carhenge

Carhenge close-up

The Fourd Seasons -representing the four seasons of wheat.

Dino and Spawning Salmon.  Both are made of car parts.

One of the sights I wanted to see on this trip was Carhenge, just outside Alliance, Nebraska.  Coincidentally, my friends Jeff and Ann had just bought an RV and wanted to give it a shakedown cruise before going on a longer trip this summer.  We agreed to meet in Alliance at the Sunset Motel and RV Park.

Carhenge is a replica of Stonehenge, only built of cars not stones.  The gray cars in the first two photos are of the original sculpture installed in 1987.  The other works of art were added later.

More iron and steel sculpture from elsewhere in Nebraska and Kansas, but first it is on to the Sandhills.

Welcome to Nebraska!

Kimball, Nebraska is about 15 miles north of the Colorado-Nebraska state line.  Like many towns on the Plains it owes its founding to the railroad.  The Union Pacific constructed its tracks through here in 1867.  Kimball celebrates Farmer's Day in late-September.  In addition to a parade, and small-town Nebraska parades are the best, Farmer's Day includes a free hamburger feed.

I stopped for gas and got my first taste of filling an SUV with $3/gallon gasoline.  I didn't want a Chevy Trailblazer, but Enterprise was out of cars at the Denver airport.  I really wanted a car so the guy waived the filled tank requirement for when I returned the car.  That saved me about $60, which, by my guess, meant I broke even on the deal.

At 5000 feet, Kimball is literally the high point of Nebraska.  From there it was a hundred miles downhill to Alliance, and a couple of the trip highlights.

Pawnee National Grassland

Colorado Route 71 runs north-south in the High Plains from southern Colorado into the Nebraska panhandle.  I drove about 50 miles of the highway.  It was mostly rangeland and ranches.  The ground looked really dry so I took a short break to water the plants at the Pawnee National Grassland.  As with Alaska last year, there are many more photos on Flickr.

Weird Telephone Messages:  There were three messages on my answering machine when I got home last night.  All three were a recorded voice asking for someone named Roberto.  I am not Roberto. 

The phone rang this evening.

A recorded voice told me it was looking for Roberto.  The recorded voice gave me instructions.  If I was Roberto I was to press "1".  If Roberto was home but needed to be fetched I should press "2".  If this was Roberto's number but Roberto was not around I was told to press "3".  If the recorded voice reached the wrong number I should press "4".  Not wanting to get more phone calls for Roberto I pressed "4".  The recorded voice told me to please stand by while I was transferred to a real person.  Then I was put on hold.  After about ten seconds I began to sense that this was some sort of scam so I hung up. 

Has anyone else had this happen to them?

Colorado Sky

Flatirons, Boulder, Colorado

I-76, between Ft. Lupton and Ft. Morgan, Colorado

Last week I had a meeting in Boulder.  After the meeting I headed east for a short, but comprehensive, visit to  Nebraska and Kansas.  Among the sites seen and visited are:  Carhenge, the largest hand-planted forest in the country, the birthplace of Kool-Aid, the childhood home of Willa Cather, the geographic center of the contiguous United States, the world's largest ball of sisal twine, the Garden of Eden (but it was closed), the Czech capital of Kansas, the half-way point between New York and San Francisco, the world's deepest hand dug well (for the second time), saw the world's largest pallesite meteorite (for the second time) and much, much more.

But, before I can upload new photos I need to do some serious backing up and deleting of files on my computer.  The hard drive is nearly full.

Quick Weather Update

It was in the upper-90s when I was in Southwestern Kansas this afternoon.  Snow is forecast for Monday morning in Denver.  I'm flying back to New York in the afternoon.  There are many, many pictures to share.

Viaduct at Night

A few scenes from the Riverside Drive viaduct over 125th Street and Manhattanville.  Previously, I visited Manhattanville in the daylight.

I'm going out of town for a week.  Posting will be light around here until I return.

Easter Bonnet

Just in time for Easter Abe's horse gets a hat.  Legend has it that the sculpture is on our campus because nobody else would take it.

The sculptor is Anna V. Hyatt Huntington.  To see several of her sculptures take the 1 train to 157th and walk over to the Hispanic Society of America on Audubon Terrace.  I know, I know, you're thinking, "Hyatt Huntington doesn't sound very hispanic".  True enough, but does that matter when your husband, Archer Milton Huntington, is the founder and benefactor of the museum?  Archer also founded the Mariner's Museum in Newport News, Virginia.  Along with Anna he founded Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina, a 10,000 acre nature preserve to showcase Anna's sculptures. 

Archer's brother Henry was the founder of the Huntington Library (which you've seen if you've ever watched the Rose Bowl Parade) and the namesake of Huntington Beach, California, a town where you can get good fish tacos.  Their father was the founder of the Southern Pacific  Railroad.

The Hispanic Society of America is almost invisible among museums in New York.  There were only a couple other people there the time I visited.  It has a great collection of Spanish art and admission is free.  Because so few people visit, the society recently announced intentions to move downtown. 

Old 9W

Old 9W is the portion of 9W in northern Bergen County that was abandoned when the Palisades Interstate Parkway was built.  It runs a little over a mile from the Stateline Lookout to the state line.  The old road makes for a nice escape from the office in the afternoon.

Totally bizzare:  New York changed their tax forms this year.  One "improvement" is that all taxpayers must now fill out form IT-2 instead of attaching a copy of their W-2 form.  What is form IT-2?  A transcription of all the information on the W-2.  I suppose the advantage of the IT-2 is that it is machine readable but, jeez, it just seems dumb to transcribe a dozen numbers from one form to another.

Double Take

I saw One Eighty a week or so ago.   I was a little confused when I saw One Seventy Five yesterday.  Different block, different side of the street.

Neighborhood Watch:  Harlem Fur moves in literally around the corner.