We did start out the day with a near crisis; a coffee crisis at that. For those of you that don't know, my wife openly admits she is a coffee snob. She doesn't like drip coffee and must have the iced, skinny, non-fat, non-healthy, caramel - sugary - sweet, frap-u-wacha-machino; or some other 50 cent word foo foo coffee drink. Well as I described yesterday, there is NOTHING in Nebraskuhhhhh. Which means there certainly isn't a Starbucks close by.
To her delight she Googled Starbucks and found one "only 6 miles away". Then Mr. Garmin burst her bubble when she poked him with her finger a few times for destination cup-O-syrup, and he told her it was 20 minutes away. Of course it was 20 minutes into some town in the wrong direction. My immediate response being, "we are not wasting an hour to go get coffee". She questioned "what am I supposed to do?" with the saddest look that resembled a kid being told someone had stolen Christmas. In my sweetest, most lovingist, most understandingist, husbandy voice I replied "you're going into that gas station over there and getting a Redbull and we're hitting the road". Knowing she had NO other option, she puttered off across the parking lot to the gas station. Even the jeep looked like it was pouting. I honestly thought I was going to have to break out some combat medic skills, grab an ink pen and start a Redbull IV on her. Oh and by the way, did I mention that I sure love my wife!
Over the years, a tradition we started is collecting a magnet at all the places we have traveled. Our fridge is covered in magnets from half the states and around the world. So anyway, this morning only 22 minutes into our drive I received a text that we needed to stop for a Nebraska magnet. Yes 22 minutes into our 5 hour drive we made our first stop, and I of course was absolutely thrilled, happy and ecstatic about it! I am certain that if we had missed that magnet from Nebraska our refrigerator would have completely fallen apart. Honestly we could have just placed a blank black magnet with nothing on it and that would be a great resemblance of Nebraska!
I do have to confess we did actually find something in Nebraska. The city of Lincoln. Apparently that is the birthplace of half the trains in America. There may be nothing in Nebraska, but holy hell there is one heckuva rail yard there. I saw more trains in Lincoln than I have my entire life. Lincoln is also home to a major failure in highway engineering. We had to switch from I-80 East to I-29 and that is not as simple as just taking an exit on to the freeway like most places. Oh no, you must take Hwy 2 through Lincoln, traveling at a lovely 45 mph pace, stopping at approximately 42 stoplights. I am quite certain they done this on purpose to force any poor soul that is crossing this desolate, baron land called Nebraskuhhhhhh to funnel into their city. Talk about a trap!
Once you get out of Lincoln, you stay on Hwy 2 for a while, cut across the corner of Iowa, then drop down into Missouri and finally pick up I-29. We were literally in Iowa for about 15 minutes. Thank God! We've been through Iowa once, that was enough. But back to Hwy-2, piece of crap cement road obviously installed by the same incompetents that put the Hwy in Cheyenne! Plenty more seams or dips rather in the road. The pace went something like Dippy Dippy Dippy Dip DipDipDiDiDiDiDiDiDiDiDipDipDipDiDiDiDipDipDippy. You get the point. But thanks to Hwy 2, it drove my Arse so far up into my head I was able to give myself a rectal exam. Thank you Nebraska! You just saved me $2400.
Driving into Missouri it only got better. The landscape slowly started changing into rolling hills and beautiful meadows. Trees started to speckle the horizon and soon there were bare forest with sparse foliage. To some that may not sound very pretty, a bunch of nekkid trees. But to me it is a beautiful sight that reminds me I am getting closer to home. After living in the evergreen state for the last 5 years, these bare trees are a sight to behold! I also noticed numerous large spacious homes nestled into the rolling hills and valleys. I could definitely live here! I did notice one thing about Missouri though. They do have a fairly low standard on what they consider a creek. From what I saw they all look more like ditches. All but one of the so called creeks we drove over I could have cleared with a good running start. The drive through Missouri only got prettier, that is until we hit Kansas City. I think two thirds of Missouri's population lives here. We did drive past the Royal's and Arrowhead stadiums. Pretty impressive! Now we are snuggled in just outside of KC in Blue Springs.
While here, I was fortunate to catch up with a dear old friend, Ben Morrow. Ironically it was 10 years ago tomorrow, 12/10/04, that we shipped out to Iraq together. Neither of us had any idea what we had gotten ourselves into. It has been just over 5 years since we last saw each other, yet today we picked up just like we left off, never missing a beat. It was almost as if time had stood still. Sure we have gotten a little older, a little more mature, and a lot better looking, but our friendship had not changed a bit. That unique kind of friendship is called brotherhood. You see there's something about almost dying together, on more than a few occasions, that creates a special bond. One that only a few will understand, and most will never experience.
Signing out for now...Tomorrow it's off to Mount Vernon Illinois!
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