It was raining steadily when we checked out of the Hitching Post Inn and followed the desk clerk’s directions back to the interstate.
Cheyenne is only about eight miles north of the Colorado border, and it’s about 40 miles to the Nebraska border to the east. Not too far from the Wyoming border is Nebraska’s highest point, at an elevation significantly lower than that of Cheyenne. I would have expected the drive toward Pine Bluffs and the Nebraska line to be more noticeably downhill.
We paused just outside Cheyenne at a truck stop for gas and some on-the-fly breakfast, and then we were on our way. Shortly after crossing into Nebraska we passed a couple of construction zones where traffic was forced to slow to 30 mph, but those didn’t last long; subsequent work zones only slowed us, at most, to 55. Along the way I saw what appeared to be an owned herd of buffalo browsing among trees lining the highway right-of-way.
As with Wyoming, my last visit had been as a kid in 1970, and since that took place at night — we had passed Pine Bluffs near sunset, and crossed over to Council Bluffs, Iowa shortly after sunup — I remembered little of it.
The scenery was nice enough until we got into the South Platte valley at the I-76 junction just north of Julesburg, Colorado. Then things flattened out. When we passed Sidney I gazed longingly at the big Cabela’s showroom right next to the interstate, but we didn’t have time to stop. We took a comfort stop at a roadside rest area, and I noticed that Chris’ left rear tire looked nearly flat again, so we halted again at the first gas station we saw, and aired up the tire again. The station looked enough like one vaguely remembered from a late-night stop back in ’70 that I have to wonder. But it probably was just an old station, looking just like any gas station would have looked 29 years ago.
We reached Kearney early enough — it was one of our shortest driving days, distance-wise, in the States — that we had time after resting from the drive to cross town to the Wal-Mart for some things we needed, and to stop at a nearby Golden Corral buffet restaurant for dinner. Tomorrow, we knew, would be difficult because it would involve driving into the Kansas City metro area, the biggest population center we’d encounter on this entire trip except for Atlanta itself.
