E. Joe Brown

Jul 17, 2023 by E. Joe Brown

I hope you enjoyed Part One of the Rapid City Conference adventure. Maybe that's too strong a term, but it was fun for Linda and me. We love taking the old US or State highways when we can, which lets us drive through the small towns you miss when you use the Interstates. That said, we did use I-90 across South Dakota on Sunday, the 25th. We wanted to stop at Wall Drug on I-90, about fifty miles east of Rapid City. While we were there I met with the bookstore manager and they purchased six copies of A Cowboy's Destiny for their shelves. YAHOO! That was a great start to our trip home.

We visited the iconic Wall Drug back in 2019 and it still amazed us. We continued east, and at US Highway 83, we began seeing new territory. I enjoy seeing new places, but Linda loves to travel, seeing and exploring roads and towns she has only experienced as she looks at her maps. We stopped in Sioux Falls, SD, a very impressive city. We found the Falls and took pictures. We continued our trip by taking the I-29 south to Sioux City, Iowa. The ranches and farms along the way all day were beautiful. We spent the night in Sioux City, drove around that evening, and walked along the Missouri River at a park. The following day we went south on I-29 to Council Bluffs, where we stopped at a visitors' center and picked up some information about Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska which was across the Missouri River and would be our next stop. Omaha was everything we expected. It's about the size of Albuquerque, but Linda and I agreed that the downtown seemed much bigger. 

We drove out to Offutt Air Force Base to see what it was like. For those of you that don't know this, I'm retired from the USAF, and Linda and I love to visit bases when we can. Offutt is the home of USAF STRATCOM. We decided to use US Highway 30 to cross Nebraska heading west. Our first stop was in Lincoln. That’s the Capitol of Nebraska and home to the University of Nebraska.


We continued through Grand Island, where we ate and stopped for the night in Kearney. As we went through many small towns, we always pulled through whatever made up the downtown. It was so “cool” to see how those small communities continue to support themselves. 

From Kearney, we left the next morning and went to North Platte, south through McCook, and on into Kansas. We saw Oberlin, and Garden City, and stopped for the night in Dodge City. We had the best Nachos ever for dinner at the Cowboy Capitol Saloon and Grill. The following day we took a trolley ride around Dodge City and visited the Boot Hill Museum.
 
I picked up information there for future use. We headed home From Dodge City, taking US Highway 56 through Elkhart, KS, Boise City, OK, Clayton, NM, and stopped in Capulin to visit the monument. Then it was home. I could have added more details, especially on the last day, but this gives you the basics, and Linda and I sure had fun.

Happy Trails,
Joe

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