Nebraska. Why yes there is more than cornfields.

[AC in A2......Aaron 693]

This TR has been very fun to follow Yvonne! I love the small town parade. Too funny about the "little kids water slide."

[Lou... 3,118]

This is what I'm talkin about. This is the USA.

I'll take this over WDW any day.

They were giving rides to people who wanted them. Apparently this is something they do during the evenings and it cost exactly $0. Nilch. Nothing. They offer the rides to the folks in town as a gesture of good will.

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

The celebration looks like so much fun!

BTW, you really grabbed my attention with the pic of moussaka. It looks delicious. David won't eat it so I don't cook it any more. My loss.

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

This is what I'm talkin about. This is the USA.

I'll take this over WDW any day.

It pains me to agree with the above. However, Florida in July is horrible and yet all those pesky people head south.

[stefa70 205]

Happy that you picked this report back up.

Redneck games, tractors and horses, are right up my alley.

Would you please ask Jim to come down and make me some moussaka? Looks delicious!

I'm glad Jessica decided to give the water slide a try. For kids or not, I would have wormed my way right in there. That looks like too much fun.

[Southern Blessings 4]

Enjoying your trip report! Looks like the parades in our town.

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

Thank you everyone for continuing to follow along.

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

It was now the evening of July 4th. We were going back over to Steve's brother's house for dinner. But first we were going to stop by the park for the BBQ. Since we were going to be eating a bit later we decided to just share a plate of food.

While we were there it started to thunder and lightning. There had not been any rain in the area for awhile. That was about to change though. We hurried to the car and got to Peter's house.

Dinner tonight was going to be bratwurst and potato salad. There is a grocery store in North Platte that makes their own brats. They have all different kinds along with the regular brats. Tonight our choices were: regular, Jack Daniels, and jalapeno and pineapple. Jim made the potato salad the night before, but forgot until we were done eating. No worries though it went great with tonight's meal.

Jim was going to head back to Iowa and not stay for the fireworks. So we said our good byes and he left.

One of the things we love most about Arnold is how close you are to the Mountain time zone. Where we live we are on the east side of the central time zone. Here we are on the western side. So, of course we decided to head head up north of town and get some sunset pictures along with some cool storm photos. It was about 9pm when these were taken.

Trying to catch some lightning shots.

Jessica decided she wanted to use my phone to get some video. She even tells us not say anything weird. Of course that does not apply to her apparently. :rofl3:

http://youtu.be/jjXexGkuFVM

We were not sure if there was going to be a fireworks show, but then we started to see fireworks so, we got back into the van and headed back down into town.

Crossing my fingers that the videos work. I loved the music that they used for the show.

Anyways after the fireworks show we headed back to the room, relaxed a bit and went to bed.

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

Oh no it does not look like it worked (I can hear stuff, but not see anything) I really didn't want to set up a You Tube account. If anyone can help me with getting the videos to work I would greatly appreciate it. I have the videos saved in my photobucket account.

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

The next day was a laid back relaxing day. We decided to go to North Platte. I told Steve about the train yard that Nicki had mentioned, but he said he didn't know where it was. I probably should have looked that up before we left.

First we stopped and saw these.

No one but me seemed to want to hang out here and take pictures so we headed off to Fort Cody. Really I could have skipped this part of the trip. I enjoyed it when the kids were younger because they just loved to look around at the cheesy items in the store. Try on some funny hats, play with some of the toys and were willing to let us take some pictures out back. Now not so much. Pretty sure this is how I must have looked to many of the other people there. :blowup:

So the family realized that if they wanted to make me happy again they would need to pose for some pictures. Ok I guess I will have to settle for 2 of the 3 kids posing for pictures.

We were hoping we could get them to recreate this one again.

Maybe even this one...

But the wouldn't. Oh well.

Here is one from before. You know when it was "cool" to have your picture taken. :clint: :rofl2:

We went back inside finalized what we were going to purchase and headed out.

Oh and guess what they sold there?

Do you remember the candy cigarettes they use to sell?

I think now they are sold as candy sticks. Not at Fort Cody though. They looked like miniature packs of cigarettes. Of course I should have gotten a picture of that, but I forgot to do that. :banghead:

We drove around North Platte some more. Went to the mall for a bit and stopped off at Taco John's to get a snack.

Taco John's and Runza are two of the must hit places on my list when we go back to Nebraska. Unfortunately I did not get a runza this trip.

What the heck is a runza?

http://www.runza.com/about

Later that evening when I was taking the trash out I noticed this.

Yes folks there are still working phone booths around. Who knew?

We went to dinner at Jim's Bar and this time I remembered to take my camera.

Jessica's pizza.

Hey I have those exact dishes at home. They were my mother's and she gave them to me.

Steve's steak.

Drew's swiss mushroom burger. Don't worry by the end of the trip he got use to me taking pictures of his food. :rofl3:

Rachel's cheeseburger and onion rings.

My meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

As I have said before and you have seen by the pictures Arnold is a small town, but they do host some pretty big events. They use to have a huge Blues Festival in July. Last year was the last year for it though. Coming up the weekend after we left was going to be the Devil's Den Bike Show and Rally.

They were advertising for it at the bar.

So, what do you think does Jessica have the look down right? :clint:

Tomorrow I wanted to go somewhere that we had never been to before. Granted it was over an hour away each direction, but hey if we had gone with my original plan to take the scenic byways it wouldn't have been.

Just sayin. :clint:

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

Sweet. We did Fort Cody too. My kids loved the miniature of the wild west show but the rest was pretty cheesy. I really wish you could have seen the Golden Spike Tower. Watching the cars get sorted is pretty cool.

Now let's talk Taco John's. I refused for the first few months to try it. I would say "I'm from Texas and Tex-mex is the only way to go." Finally, somewhere in Wyoming, Taco John's was the only choice. All I can say is that was possibly the best fast food Mexican food I've had. Sure best the socks of Taco Bell and is very different from Taco Bueno...

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Candy Cigarettes!

I haven't seen those in a while.

What an awesome idea that was.

You get Mom of the Year award for buying those for the kids. My grandmother, who smoked like a fiend, used to buy them for us all the time. My dad (her son) used to get very mad about that- he grew up in a home with two smokers and was probably the first anti-smoker guy anywhere.

The food in that restaurant looks pretty good.

TCD

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

I decided to set up a YouTube account and fixed the first video.

I am going to post the fireworks videos here now.

http://youtu.be/jjz0KpoWaL8

http://youtu.be/QVFxQTWlGso

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

Sweet. We did Fort Cody too. My kids loved the miniature of the wild west show but the rest was pretty cheesy. I really wish you could have seen the Golden Spike Tower. Watching the cars get sorted is pretty cool.

Now let's talk Taco John's. I refused for the first few months to try it. I would say "I'm from Texas and Tex-mex is the only way to go." Finally, somewhere in Wyoming, Taco John's was the only choice. All I can say is that was possibly the best fast food Mexican food I've had. Sure best the socks of Taco Bell and is very different from Taco Bueno...

I did look up where the Tower was when we got back to the room. Steve said it is on the side of town he has never been to before. Definitely something to add to our plans for our next trip. I think I will tell my brother-in-law and sister-in-law about it. I bet my 3 year old nephew would love it.

Oh I agree about Taco John's it way better than Taco Bell. I am glad you confirmed that. I wasn't sure If I was just liking it for nostalgic reasons as that is the fast food taco place I grew up with. Tacos and tots. Yummm

Candy Cigarettes!

I haven't seen those in a while.

What an awesome idea that was.

You get Mom of the Year award for buying those for the kids. My grandmother, who smoked like a fiend, used to buy them for us all the time. My dad (her son) used to get very mad about that- he grew up in a home with two smokers and was probably the first anti-smoker guy anywhere.

The food in that restaurant looks pretty good.

TCD

Thank you for the Mom of the Year award. The kids did like them. I think more of playing around with them than actually eating them though.

My dad was a smoker up until 11 years ago. When he had his 2nd stroke within two years of the first one, my sister (who was the only one left back in Maryland to help take care of him) basically told him he had to quit or she was not going to help out (the first stroke had done more cognitive damage than we realized). Needless to say he stopped and is doing great today. He lives on his own, drives, works almost full time and travels whenever he can.

The food is really good. All the meat is bought locally.

[Gots2pitt.. Jeff 64]

Cool updates. Looking like a fun trip to me.

[stefa70 205]

I love the before and after pics. It's neat to see how much the kids have changed.

You'd better keep your eye on Jessica. Looking up an Indians loincloth, in jail, "smoking" and posing like a biker model, all in one installment!

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Hey Yvonne! Just getting caught up. We found some candy cigarettes at a store in Williamsburg a couple years ago. Cracked us up! Can't believe they still sell them. Nice to know political correctness hasn't destroyed everything.

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

Wow! I really let this go. I doubt you really want to spend the fall in Nebraska so, I should probably get back to work on this.

The next day was Friday July 6^th. I had a couple options of things I wanted us to do that day. One was to go tanking on the river. Steve’s brother and his wife have gone before and they have told us how much fun it is. We found out that you really need to plan for this adventure though. So, last minute tanking trip was out of the question.

What the heck is tanking?

http://youtu.be/kJAExDJV8iU

My second choice was to go to a mine. Did you know they have a mine in Nebraska? I didn’t until I began to research our trip for the summer. Most of the time when we have gone back to Nebraska the primary reason for our trip was to see Steve’s dad. We also would spend a day or so in Omaha or Lincoln. This time I told Steve I wanted us to venture out and see more of the state. Even though we have both lived there (in completely different areas) there is so much of the state neither of us has seen. I really wanted to rent an RV once we arrived in Nebraska and take the Byways through the state stopping along the way at various places. I was out voted though.

There was a mine though that I wanted to go to see. It is about 2 hours away from Arnold. Yes a two hour drive. The good thing about being in Nebraska and where we were in Nebraska is that we really did not need to worry about traffic. We set off on the highways towards Scotia Nebraska. We were going to Happy Jack Chalk Mine. Along the way of course there was complaining about how long of a drive it was. I of course reminded them that this place was on my original place to visit had we taken the Byways that I had suggested.

If you recall it was very hot this summer. Hot and dry in Nebraska. It was well over 100 degrees the day we went to this chalk mine. When we arrived and walked past an opening for the mine you could feel this cold air. All of a sudden, my idea to go to the mine was the best idea in the world. The mine is kept at 56 degrees Fahrenheit.

So went inside and took the tour. I must confess I cannot remember all that we learned about the mine on the tour. So the pictures I am attaching will lack a written description on them. If you want to find out more about the mine and the history of it the link is here: http://www.happyjackchalkmine.org/

Some pictures taken during our tour.

You can see some remnants of the graffiti that was put on the walls by local kids during the time the mine was vacated.

Back in the day you could dance away in here to the sounds of big band music. The accoustics are incredible.

Up until last year they would have a haunted house in here during October. They had to stop that because there are no sprinkler systems. I am not sure if they will resume it or not. I guess it depends on if they raise enough money to add the sprinkler systems in.

Before we left our guide told us we could take some of the chalk pieces that were on the floor. So we each took a piece.

[Gots2pitt.. Jeff 64]

A chalk mine, interesting. Ok how many people have 1) thought about where chalk comes from 2) had chalk thrown at them. I can say I have never been in a chalk mine before.

[Southern Blessings 4]

Cool! Bet that mine did feel great in that heat!

[DaveInTN 3,247]

The tanking would have been fun! The video was great...especially the Doodle dog in the lifejacket. :rofl2:

[PureTcrazy...rita 380]

I agree with Dave, the Tanking looks fun!

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

A chalk mine, interesting. Ok how many people have 1) thought about where chalk comes from 2) had chalk thrown at them. I can say I have never been in a chalk mine before.

So, you seem to understand how my family was feeling when I coerced blackmailed suggested we go. :rofl2: Actually the chalk itself is what was used in paint. They would get it from the mine and then ship it to Omaha. Steve did admit that it was a cool place to see. Though he doesn't want to drive two hours again there and back to go again. That's ok...I have other places on my to do list for the next time we are there. :clint:

Cool! Bet that mine did feel great in that heat!

Oh it was! The minute my family felt that cold air they changed their minds quickly about the tour.

The tanking would have been fun! The video was great...especially the Doodle dog in the lifejacket. :rofl2:

I agree with Dave, the Tanking looks fun!

Tanking is on our my must do list for us the next time we go there in the summer. You just grab your chairs, a cooler, some food, positive attitudes and float down river. If you have your own livestock tank you can use that. Don't worry if you don't have one just lying around. They rent them at different places where you go tanking. Now if we could just get a bunch of fiends to go to Nebraska it could become a new GG adventure. I'll let Rob take care of organizing that one.

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

Following our mine tour, the guide told us we were welcome to visit the grounds and go to the top of the mine if we wanted to.

Sure no problem. After all we are in Nebraska and Nebraska is flat. :rofl3: :rofl2:

Before we did that though we took some pictures at the front of the mine.

We had a choice of going up one side of the hill which had a path more like a nature path you would find if you were hiking out in the woods or the other side which had steps.

So, which way did we go?

Let’s just say I realized how out of shape I was in.

Thank goodness I remembered to take a bottle of water.

We made it to the top and I rested collapsed. The view was worth it though.

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

Well it looks like we are headed back this way Saturday.  So, I thought I should wrap this up.  Being that it was over a year ago.  The rest of this will be a report that Bob will appreciate.  That's right lots of pictures not many words.

 

For Dave I promise lots of Pood Forn!

 

Following our trip to the mine we went to visit Fort Hartsuff State Historical Park. It was almost closing time when we got there. So we had the whole place to ourselves.

Photos of what the Fort looked like back in the late 1800's.

Some old tools, weapons, etc.

Now it is time to explore the Fort itself.

DS's  birthday is April 28th.  His sisters like to remind him how his birthday and this battle share the same date.  

 

 

I thought for sure I was going to find Nicki in here.  

Really makes you appreciate the modern washers and dryers we have today.

Back outside for a bit.

Next we head to the QuarterMaster Store House.  That will follow in the next update.