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| Nebraska can be a long drive. |
Sunday July 7th visit Fort Morgan, Colorado so named by Civil War General Pope after his attache' Colonel Christopher Morgan who'd recently died of suffocation while sleeping in a room served by a gas heater when the flame blew out but the gas flowed on.* The fort served to protect immigrants moving along the South fork of the Platte River toward Denver. I drove North to Ogallala, Nebraska. The Platte, arising from snow melt in the Rockies flows through Ogallala, is 'yuuuuge' in the development of the West according to a known grifter. The North Platte, once a mile wide in places, is now muddy and shallow due to irrigation demands.
* If, like me, you suffer from bouts of nostalgia for the Old West, or the "way things were", please realize today it's safer and you live longer, especially if you play tennis and drink red wine.
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| Lincoln Highway Rte. 30 |
I'm low on water, got dirty laundry and need to dump my tanks. Seeking an RV campground near Ogallala. Brother Rich's recommended iOS/Android app: RVParky. The Sleepy Sunflower campground was everything I needed. In the morning I headed to Broken Bow. Again I'm on the fabled Lincoln Highway running just north of I-80 from Ogallala to North Platte. This old highway is, well, old and past its glory days of wanting wear except occasionally between towns, presumably less traveled by.
Leaving town of North Platte (the confluence of the North and South Platte Rivers) where the Platte begins its run to the Missouri, I was soon captive of corn fields, interrogating farm equipment and shooting decaying barns. The barns are beautiful. Amidst today's hi-tech devotion to Ethanol there would often be found an old barn of ancestral days preserved like an antique but useless in the current scheme. Still sacred like a great-grandfather's ashes in an urn on the piano.
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| Anyone? Know what this is? |
Broken Bow's Museum sports a "fine collection of Indian arrowheads" according to Jack Nicholson in his 2002 film About Schmidt**, but I missed it. I did find an otherwise well-stocked grocery, but no Cornichon pickles, essential for my lunch of tuna fish on sourdough, lettuce and potato chips with Izzy my new favorite drink.
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| Main Str. Broken Bow, NE |
** Missed it until Rod Bell put me on to this sad but ultimately redeeming film on getting older. Thanks for that my friend. My own getting older is alternately joyful, sad and redeeming; so long as I remember why I have walked downstairs to arrive in the kitchen, it's fine.
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| The Stuhr Museum - art gallery |
Taking some time out here to push my personal interest in taking and viewing stereograms. Below is a section of an old (1690's) lighthouse in Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. The photo is actually a Photoshop joining of two shots side-by-side taken only a short distance apart laterally.
To view this stereoscopically (in 3D):
While looking at the towers cross your eyes until the nearly identical images of the blue "keys" (in the lower center of each tower) appear to overlap one another. Focus on the middle image of the key moving your head along the longitudinal axis to perfect the overlap. Once the overlap is achieved move your head and focus along the lateral and vertical axes until the entire structure appears in 3D. Be patient and you are in for a pleasant surprise.
South of the Stuhr is Hall County Park campground with minimal RV services but what a great Park. Spent the night July 8, 2019
Next Stop - Omaha
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