Day 12:
This was scheduled to be a day of rest, and an opportunity to get caught up on writing these here Trip Reports. But that didn’t happen. As noted before, I have been having problems with my laptop computer. Day 12 ended up being a day of reinstalling Windows 10, and repeatedly un/reinstalling a couple of specific applications. The only thing worth reporting on was lunch.
At lunch time, I wandered into downtown Chadron. In retrospect, I’m shocked I didn’t take any pictures downtown, since I have such a history of impromptu photo sessions of old school commercial buildings. Nay, instead I went into Molcajetes Mexican Restaurant. This appears to be a brand new restaurant: a couple of workers were in the process of putting a Molcajetes sign onto the building, and removing an old bakery sign. I ordered the “enchiladas locas”, which was cheese enchilidas covered with ground beef and melted cheese. I LUUUUUUVS me some cheese, and this dish had plenty of it! They offer two sizes of margaritas – sensibly called Large and Small. I ordered a small, orange-flavored margarita. Both the food and the drink were delicious. And the marg was quite stiff. I was actually glad I had not ordered the large.
After lunch, I stopped by the nearest grocery store, where I picked up some dark chocolate and a one-liter bottle of Mountain Dew for tomorrow’s drive. Day 13 was definitely the most ambitiously planned day of this trip: seven and a half hours total drive time, with four separate destinations (five, if you count the new hotel). This much driving, through this much open country presents ample opportunity for urinary urgency episodes. I hoped to minimize the risk of having such episodes by getting enough sleep that I could avoid sucking down Mountain Dew all day. So, I took an extra Mirtazapine before going to bed.
Day 13:
The extra Mirtazapine worked – I got more than nine hours of sleep. Once I had taken my morning meds and packed up my stuff, I was Eastbound and Down! All four of my Day 13 destinations are roughly in the vicinity of Valentine, Nebraska, which is about 140 miles east of Chadron. As I was traveling along U.S. Highway 20, it occurred to me that I was missing something. Something quintessentially Nebraskan: a windmill. Every single tourist brochure ever produced in order to draw people to Nebraska or any place therein has an image of a windmill somewhere on/in it. Since I didn’t feel like flying in the face of tradition, and since there are plenty of windmills along this stretch of highway, I made a few stops and snapped a few pics. Each of the pics in the gallery below was taken somewhere between the towns of Merriman and Cody…
My first actual destination of the day was Snake River Falls. This is one of the extremely few waterfalls where I have to say, don’t go out of your way. If you’ll be super close, go ahead and check it out; but I wouldn’t drive more than maybe ten minutes to get here. But you’re not likely to be that close. Had I opted not to see Snake River Falls, I would have cut 38 minutes from the day’s drive time. The waterfall is on land owned by the Snake Falls Sportsmens Club, and the owners charge you a dollar per person for admission. Not bad, eh? But all they have at the site is a drop box; so you must pay in cash, and there is no change given. The smallest bill I had on me was a fiver, so I ended up paying $4.75 for this $1 admission (figure that one out). The walk to the falls is short and pretty easy, but when you get to the ‘viewing area’, there is no ‘full frontal’ shot. Instead, you are looking down at the top of the falls. Take a look for yourself:
Moving on. I had read somewhere that there was a “Bryan Bridge Overlook” just outside Valentine, and that it provided nice views of the Niobrara River valley. Google and I found the overlook with no problem, but it was more about the bridge called Bryan Bridge than it was about the view of the valley. Read the historical marker and check out my pictures below:
Next up on the agenda was Smith Falls. I’ve seen photos of this one, so I know it will be worthwhile. I headed east out of Valentine on state highway 12, eventually turning right onto a twisting gravel road that leads down to Smith Falls State Park. I parked at the Park, got out of the car and started walking. I was soon greeted by barricades, and by signs saying that the falls and all trails in the park are closed for construction until May! Well, that’s what you get for not checking the park’s web site before you go. Also, there goes another 36 minutes of wasted driving time. So, with tears in my eyes and fleas in my crotch, I navigated back up the twisting gravel road and west on highway 12. In just a few minutes, I had arrived at my last stop of the day (which I had intentionally driven past on the way to Smith Falls). This was the Fort Niobrara Scenic Overlook, which is part of the Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge. And what sort of wildlife might one expect to see in Nebraska? These fellers, of course:
Having made it past the vampire slayers, I moved on to the overlooks. Yes, there are two overlooks at the Fort Niobrara Scenic Overlook. Look ’em over…
Thus, what began as a dark and dreary day, ended brightly (both literally and figuratively), and so I began the 3.5-hour drive to the Candlewood Suites in Grand Island, Nebraska. Most of this route had so little traffic that I didn’t even bother to look for good places to urinate; I just stopped at the side of the road whenever I felt the urge. When I arrived at the hotel, I was assigned to room 404. I was afraid I would swipe the key card and see or hear a message saying, “Error 404: Room not found”. Fortunately, this was not the case, and I was able to get my stuff into the room and unpacked.
By this time, it was getting fairly late, and it was a Monday night. As such, I figured my dinner options were very limited, so I just walked across the hotel parking lot to a Buffalo Wild Wings. I ordered the appetizer sampler platter, which was far more food than I had anticipated. All the items were yummy, so I took my leftovers and put ’em in the mini-fridge in my hotel room.
Day 14:
This day was devoted to the Stuhr (pronounced like “stir”) Museum. I would describe this museum as consisting of two distinct areas:
1. A traditional indoor museum, with a focus on pioneer life on the prairie, and
2. A living history museum called Railroad Town, consisting largely of historic buildings that have been relocated to the premises.
When I was a kid, you could ride a steam train to Railroad Town. I was rather disappointed to learn they stopped running the steam train long ago; you have to walk or drive to get there now. But I really hadn’t planned on going to RR Town, as I remember being there at least twice, but I don’t remember ever having seen the indoor exhibits. So, I spent almost the full day taking in all I could. This is definitely a worthwhile museum, and is tightly focused on truly local history, so it doesn’t overlap with the Hastings Museum, the Archway Museum, and/or Pioneer Village. They’ve got displays that tell the stories of interesting people, told in interesting ways. Like the popular Hall County Sheriff who made it a point to get to know everyone in town, then died when he was hit by a train during a blizzard. And the African-American doctor who would treat poor patients for little or no money, and started a commotion by marrying a white girl…when he was 65 and she was 17.
I did take a break for lunch, at a buffet called Pizza Ranch. Overall, it was a decent meal. I’d say it was like CiCi’s Pizza, but with a little bit better food, and without the urine smell. For dinner, I just stayed in room 404 and ate my Buffalo Wild Wings leftovers from the night before.
Last Day, eh:
This was a long and leisurely day. On the way back to Omaha, I learned that a Dodge Challenger can leap from 60 MPH to 97 MPH in a just a couple of seconds. Have I mentioned how hard it is not to speed on these wide open prairies? Once I got back to Omaha, I had lunch at a Hardee’s, did a little shopping, then headed to the airport. At the beginning of this trip, I mentioned that my flights on Southwest Airlines were largely empty. Well, not so much on the way back to Charlotte. The flights still weren’t full, but there were far fewer empty seats.
One last thing: About two months ago, I mentioned I had started using a 3-hour timer on my phone for my medication reminders, instead of having multiple preset daily alarms. This was my first trip since then, and the timer approach was so much better than my old ways! Trying to figure out when to take each dose of medication could have gotten quite messy on this particular trip because (1) I left home for the Charlotte airport at 3:15 AM, (2) my flight took me from Eastern time to Central Time, (3) Daylight Savings Time started, (4) I drove from the Central Time Zone to the Mountain Time Zone, (5) I drove back from the Mountain Time Zone to the Central Time Zone, (6) I flew back from the Central Time Zone to the Eastern Time Zone, and (7) I didn’t get home until midnight, and I still hadn’t had dinner. And so I finish with another:
PD Travel Tip: If you take medications multiple times throughout the day, use a timer for medication reminders, rather than a series of alarms. This will help to ensure you get your medicine when your body actually needs it, even when dealing with time zone changes.
Voyages with Parkinson's 