Road Trip 2016 - Night 1: Nebraska
After we obtained the greatest coffee on planet Earth, we hit the road. Our first stop was in Iowa. We used an app to try and locate some fun sights and attractions along our route.
We found a couple fun little spots. A VW Bug turned into a Spider, a castle, and a large Gnome!
The Gnome was our first stop. Apparently we should've done more research because it's located in the University of Iowa's garden center. We really only wanted to see the gnome so we drove around to make sure that it was actually located in the garden center. We circled around the back end of the garden center and could see the gnome, but not entirely...
As we made a u-turn and input the next destination, an Iowa University patrol rolled up and asked if everything was ok. We told them we were going to go see the first robbery in Adair (we found out later there's nothing there, much to our dismay).
After that we decided to hit one last stop before we got to Nebraska, a VW Beetle Spider! Finally an attraction we were able to see! Albeit off the beaten path. We decided to have lunch at the VW Spider then take off.
It started raining pretty good as we got to Nebraska. We decided that our stops would be minimal just to be sure we could get to Mormon Island. We stopped in Omaha to fill up and realized that there was a CASTLE there to see! I couldn't pass up seeing a castle, especially since we hadn't seen anything super awesome for awhile. It's the Joslyn Castle. It was built in 1903 and is magnificent! It took up a the whole block.
The last place we NEEDED to stop was the Pawnee State and Recreation Area. We love the TV show Parks & Rec. Even though it was dreary out, we got to stop and check out the large lake there and potty the dogs.
We got to Mormon Island a little after 4 pm, no one was at the front office. It's a large place RIGHT off the highway. A choice I'll later regret. We picked up some wood from the convenience store that shares the frontage road and then drove around and picked a site.
Apparently this area is a major stop over site for Sand Hill Cranes on their migration North for the summer. We saw several flying over us and calling as they sailed across the sky. Jess and I started a fire and started making our hobos. As they cooked I took the beast for a run. There were several little bridges that crossed over the river and through the woods ;).