The Adventure Home

Brian and I left Wheatland with hopes of getting lots of miles behind us, but we were hungry. So, we stopped at Greg's Grub for a burger. There we were served burgers by Gregg with full Michael Jackson CNN coverage on the telly--punctuated by Nebraska Greg's commentary. NICE.

We get back in the car and get going, only to notice a pretty nasty dark sky ahead. Tuning the radio to 1630 on AM we hear that in at mile marker 419 (not actual number), there is a tornado warning. Funnel clouds cited and likely some baseball-sized hail. Our windshield is getting pitted, and Hmmmm, we are at mile marker 414 and counting. UGH, so we turn around and drive a few miles outside of the storm and land in the only patch of near blue sky. We hung out with our new Nebraskan bar-keep friend, we'll call her Lana. Lana at the Linger Longer Bar lamented, "now, no one's gonna pay attention to Farrah Faucett. And she was much better than Michael Jackson." We ordered a Bud and Michelob Ultra and waited out the storm.


Brian plays "Avoid cutting your fingers off" and Texas Hold 'Em on the video game console, and because the machine gets shut off every night we win a lot, so we enter the coolest name we know.









The weather clears a bit, and we take off. We are now sandwiched between storms, and I have to say that listening to AM radio for hours is not fun. We at last arrive in North Platte, where the tornado weather catches up with us. During dinner the electricity goes out. Though dining in the dark with 100 or so strangers, we were glad our meals were already cooked and at our table. Back in our room, hotel management kindly warns of us of black bugs, little rolly polly kinds the note says, that they sprayed for so we shouldn't see them. But not to worry, they won't refund our money if we do.

The next day we are off, and Brian caves to my request to stop at a vineyard in Iowa. Yup. Iowa has vineyards. What a highlight. They seemed genuinely impressed that we were from RI, and that we traveled so far. It worked; we bought four bottles.

The next night we're in Gary, Indiana (Insert song here). And the car takes us into the getto to the Budget Motel, that I had entered. We took a U-turn at the gang-members' corner store as they swaggered across the street. We do at last find a better looking, though, smokey room in Gary. Pizza and some of our wine was in order.

The next day, we go HOME. No matter what, but not without Pennsylvania, kicking our butts. We took some back roads to avoid the 2 mile an hour road-work enforced speed limit. We drove by a drive-in movie theatre, but Brian said, "NO." Alas, we eventually make it home and wake up in our house the same morning we arrived! And it's clear we had been gone too long.

Yup, that's no tree top peeking out from behind our house, that's a TREE growing in our gutter. NICE