Guess Where?
I haven't said anything here for a few days because...we drove to Chicago. I won't go into why at the moment, but the decision was a quick one and a little unexpected. We decided to take it slower and do it in three days rather than two (as last time) given that the weather forecast looked good and I didn't expect to be dancing in the rain with 18-wheelers.
It was, in fact, sunny and beautiful the whole way there, so on our first day out we jogged a little north off I-80 at Ogallala, in western Nebraska, and took a look at Lake McConaghy, which was formed by damming the Platte River. I wasn't prepared for what I saw: (Off-) white sand beaches in Nebraska! Better still, they allow you to drive your car right onto the beach, and don't fuss about dogs running on the beach or going into the water. The beaches are evidently natural, from extremely fine river sand worn away from the limestone strata we could see exposed on the hillsides. The lake is huge and the beaches seemed to go on forever. I brought my digital thermometer and dropped its probe into the lake. The water was 72°-cold, but I've been in colder. We decided not to attempt it on the way out, but we're hoping that the water will warm significantly while we're in Chicago, and intend to take a day off on the trip back to dunk on the Lake McConaghy beach.
The rest of the trip was uneventful-though we passed a couple of cattle feedlots near Kearney, Nebraska that closed up our sinuses bigtime. QBit and Aero behaved very well, and traffic moved pretty monolithically at 5 MPH over the stated limit. We took notes on places we might visit on the backswing: the Amana Colonies, Wallace Winery in Iowa, and a few state parks with swimming lakes or ponds.
Late Sunday morning we again left I-80 briefly, to lunch in Grinnell, Iowa and see the 1914 "jewel box" Merchants Bank building, designed by Louis Sullivan. It's very identifiably Sullivan; however, the brickwork on the front face looks very recent compared to everything else.
So we're here, and will be here for a couple of weeks. I have broadband and will be in contact. More later.