Valentine, NE

There is a town in NE called Valentine and we are here for the night. It’s in Cherry Co., which is not at all what you would expect – lots of cherry trees dotting the countryside like we do in Door County, Wi.  In fact, there are virtually no trees to be had, cherry or otherwise. It’s mostly rolling sandhills with lots of long grasses on top. I understand these hills cover some 19,000 square miles. The hills are sand dunes – “the largest tract of stabilized dunes in the Western Hemisphere”. Besides the hills, there are thousands of Angus cattle, in herds, hanging out and mostly close to the highway. They wander about on an open range. Can’t imagine how they are ever found when the harsh winters set in. There are more cattle than people with an average of one person per square mile. I looked for signs of life while following the bikers, like some kind of structure but there is nothing like that for as far as you can see, at least not from Hwy 20 – no farms, no houses, no gas stations, no shacks, nothing until you get to the very low populated towns that are many miles apart. It is incredibly beautiful though, for the long grassy sandy hills blow in the wind, especially on a day like today with winds up to 30 miles an hour. You’d think you were on a hilly, sandy beach along Lake Michigan, except there isn’t any water in view, at least not from Hwy 20. 

Our friends Gail and Nick biked across the U.S. a few years ago. Gail has been a big help to me in planning my role for this journey. One of the things she said was, ” you’ll be eating more pizza than you can imagine as you go across the country”. I wasn’t sure what she meant at the time but I sure do now. Every small town has some kind of pizza parlor. They may have nothing else but you can always count on pizza. I think we eat it or something like it every other night. Ian is the only one willing to plunge in again and he worked at a pizza place all last year! Oh for a Big Mac!

Others are wanting to write too so will sign off. Surely someone will tell you about our experience at Fort Robinson.