Day 4 – On the Trail in Nebraska

Pony Express Monument - St. Joseph, MO

Started the day with a tour of the Pony Express Museum in St. Joseph, MO. On the way to the museum we hear this loud siren. At first we thought it was an ambulance, but we couldn’t tell the direction it was coming from and it was only one tone. It seemed to be coming from everywhere.  Then we realized – tornado warning! They test their warning system the first Monday of every month. Fortunately the sky was clear so we knew there wasn’t a problem.

Drove northwest from St. Joseph through a corner of Iowa and over to Lincoln, NE. Of course we stopped to see the University of Nebraska campus and have lunch. Neither Jeanne nor I like Nebraska, so there were the obligatory jokes. “What does the “N” on a Nebraska football helmet stand for?” “‘Nowledge." Better told as a joke and than written.

Oregon Trail Wagon Wheel Marks

On the drive today we followed three historic trails. None of this was planned, we just learned about it as we went along the drive. Lewis and Clark passed through St. Joseph following the Missouri River north. Then in Nebraska we went along both the Pony Express trail and the Oregon Trail [see photo] which passed just south of the Platte River just outside of North Platte, NE, where we spent the night. We went exploring, with the help of a map, and found some of the old Oregon Trail wagon wheel ruts just south of town.

Kind of a long and boring drive today through more corn and soy fields, but things changed slightly in western Nebraska as we started seeing occasional cattle herds and fields where hay had been baled. This part of the country seems to be in a bit of drought so where the corn wasn’t irrigated, it had turned brown. Actually kind of amazing to see how much corn is grown in the US.