Cycling Across America #46
In the Nebraskan Corn: York to Hastings
Part 46 of the Cycle-Across-America series. (Read from the start in Boston or see the full index)
October 1st
Toast with grape jelly and strawberry jam, three kinds of donut, grapefruit juice, and two cups of tea while I look at a large map of the USA and answer all the usual questions.
And that was the longest conversation I had all day.
I like Nebraska. Being here. Looking at it. Listening to it. The demeanour of its people appeals to me. But they won’t talk to me.
To be fair, in these parts there isn’t all that many people. If they say anything at all to me it’s of the type :
-you’re not cycling across the United States on a bicycle?This is where I begin immediately to bore them insisting on telling them that not alone did I begin in Boston but I’ve got here via Georgia, Oklahoma, and Iowa. Can’t have them thinking I came the short way. I must stop doing that.
So straight onto US 81 over I-80 heading due South. Right into that wind. It felt about 25mph and I was going less than 8mph. More frustrating than anything. Holding the bike steady in the shoulder wasn’t a problem but hearing anything was. The wind was so strong that when a semi would go past me you wouldn’t feel the passing air.
First town was McCool Junction. I’d only gone 5 miles so no need to stop. With a population of 703 there wasn’t much life out on the highway but the town was mostly to the east. Still south into the wind towards Fairmount. It was in Fillmore County as I left York County.
It had taken me 2 hours to get here so I would eat even though I still had 45 miles to go. Had to go east for a short distance. The town was dominated by the grain plant and the railway. A train was going west as I entered the town. Over 100 cars of mixed cargo.
Yesterday I’d seen 5 trains, each carrying about 116 cars of coal (I know, I counted them - there’s not much to count out here and this was moving). All of them heading east. Like all of the grain plants out here, Fairmount’s had the name of a co-op on it.
Highway 6 ran along the edge of town cutting off Main Street before it reached the railroad. The town seemed to have buildings dropped casually around in no order except for the main street which was mostly on one side. On the other side there were buildings, including a couple of those corrugated metal hangar shaped buildings, but not like the west side.
An historical plaque told me of the town’s history. It was famous for a creamery which started there about one hundred and fifty years ago. It spread to about a dozen other towns in this area of Nebraska, and eventually its headquarters moved to Omaha. Since then the building that housed its office has been in the hands of doctors in town. The company became one of the nation’s top 500 and I think it was 1974 when it moved its HQ out of state to Houston and was taken over by some other food giant.
[Because I’m not spending too much time editing these journal entries, they’re longer than they need to be, and so I’m putting the rest of this entry below the fold]
In a play area I took a photo of a space shuttle for kids. Then the cafe on the corner. Mostly old people inside and it was practically full. Very bright inside with the walls painted white and plastic plants on the window sills.
She said there wasn’t much left as she showed me the menu and I chose the only meal I could see not scratched out. A chicken rice casserole. All done in together, very stodgy and with mashed potatoes that made me want again the garlic mashed potatoes my Omaha host had made me. Peas and bread also and some pudding that clearly came with the meal. Drank lots of water and ice tea, and I was out of there by 1.00pm.
Highway 6 was largely deserted with lots of cracks supporting almost bushes in the shoulder. I felt like I was doing a hurdle race. Not safe to use the road though ’cause when something did come along it came at 70mph. Going due West was easier than going South, but only just. I went speeds of 9, 10 and 11mph.
Grafton was the next town and it was small. Its sign proclaimed “Welcome to Grafton - the great life”.
In this particular island in the corn there were pretty houses, grain storage things, and a stone church. It was 8 miles to the next town and then almost 30 clean through to Hastings, so I bought some back-up food from the gas station. I disturbed the woman from her meal on her lap and her daytime soap, to pay for my food and drinks, but not so much that she wanted to talk.
Six large signs in a row told of The Pioneer Village in Minden. That’s on the way to Holdrege after Hastings and if I have time (wind permitting) I’d like to go there. A couple of more trains passed but mostly it was a day of just me and the corn. Sometimes the crops were bordered by a striking white grass but mostly it was just corn.
There was a series of 4 signs of a road quality right up against the corn, spread out over half a mile. They said : “We till the land”, “We turn the soil”, “We use ethanol”, and “Instead of oil”. Alone with myself and a blue sky so windy it couldn’t hold any clouds that dared to appear there, I kept thinking of all the people I was ignoring.
I didn’t send a Congratulations card to friends in England on the birth of their 1st child, or to my nephew for his 5th birthday only 2 days ago, or to my brother for passing his Junior Cert, or a friend in Ireland to wish her good luck in Cambodia.
Alone in the corn I would find myself at home after the trip and deciding where to live and work and play. It was too windy to sing but I tried a couple of times.
When the road swung Southeast directly into the wind it marked the town of Sutton. A lovely little motel with 6 rooms. I wanted to stay there but had no excuse to stop after only 30 miles. On both sides of the road the houses were all wooden and pretty. Nearly all of them were painted white.
Down one street I could see a main street at the end so I left the highway. Again very much a one-sided Main Street with a beautiful building from 1887 called Central Block in the centre of the block that was the Main Street.
It had taken me a further 2 hours to get here but I reckoned I needed some food and some shelter from the wind. The only person there, I ate a 6 inch sub and the girl who was very busy insisted on me having a free refill of my Pepsi (save 25 cents). Big wide streets. White wooden houses and a red bricked main street. The radio was chirpy and people spoke to each other in the streets. A pity they wouldn’t talk to me but I still liked the town enough to want to stay there. How come a town of only 1′300 people had a motel?
3.30, time to press on to avoid the dark. At 8 mph that’s almost 4 hours left and definite darkness. But if I push it up to 10mph then it’s bright still at 6.30pm.
And that’s what happened. I pushed the bike in the wind, all the time surrounded by beautiful expanses of crops. The lack of traffic made it feel even more rural but sometimes a car whizzing by at 70mph and a casual wave from the driver was great company. I saw a sign for a picnic table by a tree, or maybe it was a tree by a picnic table, but anyway I saw neither the table nor the tree the specified half mile ahead.
There was road works the last 15 miles so I had a rough ride on the shoulder as it was dug up and awaiting re-surfacing. Most of the construction workers were women and one told me to use the brand new surface of the road which the traffic being led by a pilot car wasn’t yet allowed to. I did this for a bit checking it first with my hand. It was still warm.
For miles outside Hastings there are these, hundreds of them, bunker shaped mounds to the South of Highway 6. These are part of the Naval Ammunitions Depot started in 1942 and closed in 1966. There were thousands of buildings in total and hundreds of miles of road and rail. At its peak it employed 10,000 people - military and civilian, boosting the local population from 15,000 to 23,000 and reportedly soothing the embittered farmers who had land taken from them for this purpose.
Known locally as the NAD it’s quite a sight to see all those munitions containers grown over with grass and bushes. I was going to count them but they don’t move so no challenge. Once an accidental explosion killed 9 people and left a crater 550 feet long. Supposedly this explosion was felt 100 miles away.
Took the by-pass because I liked being out in the crops so much and didn’t want to go into the town. Super-8 again to use my VIP card. A Dairy Queen for dinner. To go, so as to watch the box and study those maps. Started a postcard and looked at the weather a lot.
It’s going to be cold tomorrow. In the 40s and 50s with a strong north wind causing a wind chill down in the 20s or so. And by the weekend it’s passed and we’re warm again.
Read the Next Entry (#47) in My Bicycle Trip Across America
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Long live Dairy Queen!