NEBRASKA

OMAHA

We arrived in Omaha, listening to Bright Eyes, excited. Our guide book had warned us to be careful, as a short pitstop "in this vibrant brick and cobblestone old-market neighbourhood could turn a few hours into a few days." We became doubtful of this warning as we pulled into the carpark of the Econolodge, surrounded by concrete buildings. This certainly didn't seem home to the likes of Warren Buffet and Hillary Swank, though it was somewhat easier to believe that Marlon Brando and Malcolm X had roots here. The lodge was full of fairly unsavoury types, as we discovered in the corridor, when we heard shouting and saw a man leaving a room professing, "It wasn't me," as he proceeded to do up his fly.  As all good Britons do, we scuttled to our room, triple locked the door and peered through the ominously vandalised peephole, before deciding it was safe enough to collect our suitcase half an hour later.  In the end though we were happy to be confined to our room, as we chanced upon one of the greatest shows on TV ever: "The Legend of Shelby the Swamp Man." A countdown of his greatest hits, where we witnessed him being shot at with a bow and arrow and antagonising a range of deadly animals just for shits and giggles, prepared us for his new series, on the History Channel obviously.

Despite what we had heard, Omaha turned out to be a bit dull; Shelby the Swamp Man seemed to be the highlight.  The centre was very pretty and I can imagine that there is a good nightlife when the students are around, but otherwise all that was left to entice us was a Christmas shop and a large record store.  After a quick, yet thorough, exploration we set off on the road again.

OGALLALA

The day's drive took us through Nebraska; now we know why all American foodstuffs are primarily corn products: corn pancakes, corn syrup, corn sugar, corn bread, corn dogs.  In Nebraska, as far as the eye can see, in all directions, are corn fields.

CORN, CORN, CORN.

We decided to venture off the Interstate onto the scenic byway to get some beautiful views of more corn, but now slightly closer up.  We stopped off in a town called Gothenburg to see an "original pony express station".  In reality it was an air conditioned log cabin, with a bored old lady inside selling T-shirts and faux vintage posters.

As we continued we got to see a beautiful sunset over the corn fields before resting for the night in Ogallala, which we picked from the map for its amusing name.  It actually turned out to be an entertaining place, with a Western style street, complete with saloon and jail.  We had dinner in the saloon, where James tried chicken fried streak served by Kim, a drugged up, yet sweet waitress.

Spent the morning checking out the aforementioned reproduction of a Wild West town. The museum was crap, as it made no mention of Calamity Jane despite talking in depth on Wild Bill Hickok.  We set out on a detour to see Lake McConaughey, which looked quite pleasant, though we didn't stay long.

Foods tried:
Chicken fried steak - a surprisingly good combination of KFC and steak, though too many would certainly lead to a heart attack
Hickory smoked beef jerky - like chewing a leather strap.  Seems odd but we love it nevertheless
Twizzlers - horrible; like eating crayons
Breakfast burritos - Meh, egg substitute is scary, but it seems we have to get used to it here!
Gatorade - good driving hydration. Glacier Ice was refreshing, Glacial Cherry was like drinking a bakewell tart.