Driving through the Great Plains - days 11-14

Day 11 / 9/13/2012 / Chicago, IL - Aurora, IL - Winterset, IA

Thursday morning it was time get back on the road. Since Yellowstone was getting closer, it was important to get the last hiking equipment. We had found out that there is an outdoor store called REI just outside Chicago on our route and we decided to stop there. The store was great, the employees knew their stuff, and I got great service and ended up buying hiking shoes, socks, pants, and a shirt. First time on our trip I bought more stuff than Liisa, which she keeps reminding me. After REI we also stopped to a premium outlet mall where things returned to normal and Liisa left the mall with more stuff than I did.

Our first plan was to drive to a campground but since the next day was going to be one of Liisa's most important days of the trip, a day in Madison County, we decided to drive all the way to Madison County. We called the motel that we had reserved for the next day, Super 8, and the owner, Bill, was kind enough to organize a room for us already the night before and wait for us until we got there. On the drive there we saw some amazing colors as the sky was the reddest we've ever seen.




Day 12 / 9/14/2012 / Winterset & Madison County, IA

The day in Madison County was, like I mentioned before, very important to Liisa and luckily the day couldn't have better. The sun was shining the whole day and it was warm but not too hot. We saw all the covered bridges that are famous in the area and saw all the important locations from the movie Bridges of Madison County. The movie was one of the major reasons why we went there as it is one of Liisa's all time favorite movies.




We also met a lot of locals who had been there during the filming of the movie and they had interesting little stories to tell about the film or the locations. The town of Winterset, where the movie takes place, is a great town and it's just the kind of small town where everybody is really nice and friendly. For example when I was taking a picture of Liisa in front of a barber shop, the barber came out just to offer to take a picture of both of us. He also told that he did all the haircuts for the movie, except for Clint Eastwood, who had his own hairstylist, 65 or 67, in total.




The area around the town is also great. It is a very beautiful area with hills and rivers and small country roads. Liisa was really excited about everything and had a great day and I wasn't too bored either, in fact I had a really nice day too.




In the evening was my highlight of the day, it was the second Man vs. Food stop of our trip. We went to the closest city, Des Moines, where there were two places to choose from: High Life Lounge and Jethro's BBQ. We chose the latter as we had problems finding the other place.

Unfortunately Jethro's was a little disappointing, Brisket Liisa had was a little cold and my food, I had a combo plate with pretty much every meat they had to offer, was ok but nothing compared to Dinosaur BBQ. Maybe I should have tried the Adam Emmenecker Challenge.

Day 13 / 9/15/2012 / Winterset, IA - Omaha, NE - Gretna, NE

From Winterset we wanted to take a smaller road and chose highway 92 west. It was a great choice as the sceneries were great and we got a totally different feel to the area than we would have on an interstate.












We stopped in Omaha to have a late lunch and take a quick look around. We met very friendly people at the tourist office who hoped we would have spent more time there. We wanted to be early at the campground so we continued forward after a walk at the Old Market area.

As we were in no hurry we kept the drive pretty short that day and for the first time on our trip we were in our campground when it was still light and I took advantage of that and went for a run. Although it was a short run, about 3-3,5 miles, it felt good after mostly sitting in a car for the past two weeks, of course we have done a lot of walking but still it was nice to go running. After the exercise we had a movie night in our tent and watched Safe House, which was a good action movie.

KOA West Omaha / Lincoln has been the best campground this far because of its good facilities. It was also KOA Value Kard Appreciation Weekend, so there were free activities and food available.

Day 14 / 9/16/2012 / Gretna, NE - Minden, NE - North Platte, NE

On Sunday we had a great drive. We first drove Interstate 80 but left it because we had heard good things about Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska. It has a lot of historic items from old cars to saddles and toys to old tools. Unfortunately when we got to Minden we found out that it was already closed for the day and it was only 5 pm.

We didn't want to go back to the interstate and wanted to try another smaller road, this time route 6 west from Minden and then 83/23 north to North Platte. Again this was a great decision and we saw some great sceneries in the prairies and a lot of very small towns, I mean very small. Some we passed even before we realized it was a town.
















We reached North Platte in the evening before sunset and were ready to relax in the motel room. We checked the room and what we found changed our plans. We found a bed bug. When we complained about it, the receptionist or the owner changed from nice to really rude. She didn't even offer us another room so we left the motel. We checked a few of the close by hotels and motels but they were too expensive and we decided to just sleep in our car. So we spend a night in the Walmart parking lot next to the RVs and trucks. Everything went well and we actually slept pretty well.
-Riku

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