Adventures
Our weekend trip to central Nebraska
A weekend trip to Grand Island, Nebraska, to explore the Sand Hills region and visit attractions like Carhenge, with the possibility of “tanking” a local river.
We booked a ridiculous trip last night
Some recent health challenges (and the resulting physical restrictions) forced us to cancel our big Canadian Rockies road trip this month.
I would have been traveling and camping for nearly a month, with Jen joining me for the middle two weeks, opting to fly in/out to maximize her vacation time. I was really excited about the trip, and was due to head off early next week. But alas, we’ll have to wait until next year to see those gorgeous mountain views.
That’s left us with some unscheduled vacation days that we need to fill in August or September, as we’re already generally booked for the remainder of the year. There aren’t many good options, given the temps and avoiding elevation (one of those pesky health restrictions). To fill some of the time, we ended up building out an 8-day trip to Ohio and Pennsylvania for Jen to mark off a bunch of national park units. Of course, you may remember that I just did an extended Ohio-Pennsylvania road trip in May, so alas, there will be few new things for me to see. That’s ok, I always enjoy traveling with Jen no matter what we do or see.
That shorter trip left us with an additional three day weekend to utilize. Weekend camping trips are out, as it’s either too hot in the low lands, or I’m restricted from higher elevations.
And so we started checking Google Flights to see if there was a cheap ticket somewhere. Welp, nope, not many options other than LA and SF, which we are already visiting in the next 6 weeks.
Except one destination, that is.
$88 roundtrip, nonstop, with flight times that seem optimized for our schedule.
What’s that destination? A place improbably named Grand Island. Where is Grand Island? In Nebraska. The middle of Nebraska.
So we booked it.
What’s there to see in the middle of Nebraska? No fucking clue. I’ve never been there, as my mostly blank counties map shows. But we’re going to go explore and see what we find.
And let’s be honest here; we’ll be happy enough marking off a bunch of these counties, whether we find anything interesting there or not. After all, the whole point of our quest to visit all 3144 counties in the US is to mark off those blank spots on the map. And right now, Nebraska is the blankest state on my county map—I’ve only been to a paltry 29% of the state, all along the edges.
So, we’re flying to Grand Island, Nebraska for a long weekend to visit some random, cornfield- and/or sandhill-filled counties. A somewhat ridiculous trip by most sane standards, but a trip we’re doing anyway. After all, we always have a blast exploring new places together, so I’m sure we’ll have a good time on this trip, too.
And at least I’ll finally make it to Carhenge.
EDIT to add:
One challenge for this trip is that the rental car situation sucks. Not only are the cars generally expensive (about $100/day), but they inexplicably come with a 100-mile per day limit. I haven’t seen mileage limits from major rental car companies in more than a decade, and never for such a rural place where you have to drive long distances to get anywhere of note.
But we found a work around. Because we’re flying in after work, we don’t technically need the car until the following morning, since we’re simply grabbing a late dinner and heading straight to bed. So we searched the local area for an offsite location. It’s half the price and has unlimited miles, which is crucial for a trip like this. Guess which one we booked.
Another minor challenge is that the cheap flight does not include any bags—carry-on or checked—even though it clearly shows that it does when you search in Google Flights. Take note when booking! We’re okay with that, as it’s only a 3.5 day trip and we should be able to fit everything we need into a personal item.
Burr Oak Cemetery. 📍
On our way to Chicago O’Hare, we detoured to visit the gravesites of Emmett Till and Mamie Till Mobley. We also stopped by the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ, the site of Emmett’s open-casket funeral in 1955.
Last year, we visited all of the known sites in Mississippi associated with Emmett’s murder and mutilation. The church, along two related sites in Mississippi, were designated as a national monument in 2023.
I finally wrote about my visit to Cabinetlandia, which was five years ago yesterday. And in doing so, I fell down a rabbit hole of research about this fun project—stuff I really wish I had known when I first visited out of a whim. This has Web 1.0 feels all over it.
A runway that changed the world
On this day 79 years ago, this runway on the small island of Tinian in the Mariana Islands changed the world. It was from this stretch of remote pavement that the Enola Gay took to the air with a ferocious new weapon, headed to Hiroshima to inflict unbelievable damage.
We visited the then-abandoned site in 2017 as part of our travel quest to visit all the major sites associated with the Manhattan Project.
One of the highlights of our visit to Halifax was the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, housed in the same dock building that served as the port of entry for immigrants. I was surprised at many of the similarities between the histories of immigration in Canada and the United States.
OTD in 2018, I hiked to Exit Glacier, my first experience with a glacier. It’s iconic for the signs showing the previous extent of the glacier in various years, clearly demonstrating how quickly the ice has receded.
I’ve been to every national park unit in the US, and this remains my most favorite park sign anywhere. It’s located on the back side of the entrance sign for the Exit Glacier area of Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska.
Love this “cloud shadow” around Mt Edgecumbe, from five years ago today.
Here’s a short video of our flight back from Aniakchak, taken near Upper Ugashik Lake looking southeast towards the Aleutians. Just gorgeous terrain down there.
Visiting Aniakchak Crater
Five years ago today, I finally made it to the least visited national park unit in the country, Aniakchak National Monument, a collapsed volcanic caldera in the Aleutian Range in Alaska. I really need to blog about the whole story about this.
This park is very remote, requiring a bush flight to access, and the unpredictability of the weather means you might be waiting many days for even a short flight window. It took six days of nervous waiting for us to make it there, constantly checking the weather and in contact with the pilot every couple hours. Many folks get skunked; a fellow park quester had waited ten days just prior to our arrival and never got an opportunity. We got ours on the very last day we had committed to the endeavor. This might be the best text message I’ve ever received, sent by the pilot.
I’ll write and post more about this on rscottjones.com, but for now, here are some photos of our time there.
Visiting Aniakchak was the lynchpin for me completing my quest to visit all 400+ national park units, which happened a few days later in Glacier Bay National Park.
On this day in 2018, we stopped at Edge of the World Brewing in the remote and infamous polygamist town of Colorado City near the Arizona/Utah border. I’m still surprised that this place ever opened, let alone stayed in business.
