State 14 of 50  

 

 

    Nebraska

 

Capital: Lincoln

Population: 1,711,000 (ranked 38th of 50 states)

Area: 200,000 kmē (ranked 16th of 50 states)

 

 

 

 

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Ride Report

This state: 378 kms     Journey to date: 12,604 kms

Scroll down below the route map for this state's ride report and photos

 

 

Ride Report

Apparently Nebraska is the state in the US that everyone slings off at. I actually liked the 368 kms I saw of it although a lot of that was admittedly from the inter-state.

The state line is the Missouri River which I crossed at 6:30am in fine fettle, a song in my heart and swagger to my riding position. By 7:00am I was gutted by a dark brooding sky and bolts of lightning in the distance. The question was.. would the storm be heading my way? I was riding west, the storm happened to be going southeast and we collided at Lincoln. I pulled over into a petrol station, parked the bike as much out of the deluge as possible under an overhang and went inside to shelter. I had to make a pretence of shopping so browsed the fridge magnets and toiletries section. Under arm deodorant? Twisting Throttle? Don't make me laugh. I bought 2 Krispy Kreme donuts and a 32oz coffee. I emptied in some creamer in a little pottle. It floated on top of the coffee like nasal discharge.

The storm passed over and I finished the donuts. One hundred miles of interstate riding later I reached the first of three pilgrimages in the Midwest I had set myself in advance planning this ride. The third was to reach the centre of the continental USA at a place just outside Lebanon, Kansas. The two Nebraska rites of passage are documented under their photos below. When a traveller visits a foreign land certain elements of that culture tug at the very essence of the traveller's being, like a beacon to the soul. The two beacons in Nebraska I consider are iconic moments in American history. They made visiting Mt Rushmore and Little Bighorn mere superficial intersections with history. These two Nebraskan 'meccas' rank on a higher existential plane. I refer of course to the memorial to the Martin brothers who were pinned together by an arrow while escaping indians on horseback and the memorial to Andy the Footless Goose. You may scoff but I am not lying when I say I rode away from these two sites with a lump in my throat and a sense of having drilled down to the core of Americana.

The remainder of the ride towards Kansas I can't really remember, other than lots of corn, as visiting the two memorials was like asking a Muslin what he did when he got home from Mecca.

That was Nebraska, now Toto, to Kansas.