I am in Nebraska tonight, east but not east enough.  I had a tiring day Friday.  After getting the wrong mileage information off the internet (whaaaat?!?),  I found out that I would be arriving at my reservation destination around midnight.  No could do.  At 6:30 pm I was scrambling to find an affordable hotel room close to where I was in Wyoming. 

I walked into a Motel 6 that had a couple of rooms available.  A strange man who parked in the handicapped “grid” area in front of the door pushed in front of me as I waited at the counter, peeled off a few $20s from a giant wad of cash and said to the clerk, “This is for another week.”  I went out to my car and called other hotels while I wondered why the metal doors to the rooms in front of me had dents—lots of dents—in them:  SWAT team?  Baseball sized hail?  Baseball bat? 

Anyway, I found a hotel two buildings down, America’s Best Inn I think, and the front desk woman was wonderful.  She was really sweet, and the room was far nicer than I ever expected.  There were families and couples there, rather than America’s Most Wanted.  I picked up a few groceries across the street, took a hot shower and collapsed into a puffy king size bed.

Drove the rest of the way through Wyoming and am just under halfway through Nebraska.  Now I am, wait for it:  camping.  I’ve had this great little tent that is perfect for me.  It sets up in under 10 minutes, and I think I paid $12 for it.  When I called the campground earlier today to find out if they had spaces, I was surprised that they did on a Saturday in July.   I found out why when I arrived as I uttered these four-letter words to myself:  bugs and rain.  Everything around was fresh and soaking wet when I pulled in, and, of course the tent sites are on the mud, er, ground.  Well, it isn’t that bad.  There is grass, really.  Just nowhere to park without sinking up to your ankles in muddy water. 

The bugs, well.  The mosquitoes started just as I decided to set up the tent after all.  They’re small, but there are millions of them.  We’re under trees , next to a creek and surrounded by mud puddles.  The good news is that I hear lots of frogs in the creek who, I’m sure, feast on them, though I don’t know how the dozen or so in my tent will make it over there.  This is what I forgot about life in the Midwest.  Always carry OFF or Skin So Soft after Memorial Day.

Incidentally, the woman camping next to me (also travelling alone) has friends who live in Corvallis (OR,) and she and her husband lived in Rochester for four years while he got his Masters at RIT.  On her way to curate a show in Wyoming on “dressing cowboy,” she is a professor and has degrees in textiles and design.   She kindly helped me set up my tent.

So there are storm warnings out tonight, but the air doesn’t seem quite as oppressive as it was earlier, so maybe it won’t rain after all.  If a tornado does happen to pass through, maybe I’ll do a Dorothy and shave some travel time off my trip. 
(more photos later as I sort through)