Leaving Gordon I found out why it was 30 miles to the next town and almost another 30 to the next one after that – I was now in the sand hills of Nebraska. Yes, they are hills made of sand, with green grass growing on them – probably not very good to farm on, so very few people live there.
After a second small breakfast 30 miles down the road in Merriman, it was another 25 miles to the next town, Cody. It was lunchtime and this was the only restaurant between Merriman and Valentine. Since everyone else there was eating the turkey special, I decided to get it too, it was good.
I had tried to use the restroom – one was labeled “pointers” and the other “setters”. Hmmm. The pictures of the dogs above the words didn’t provide any clues. So I went back to my table, hoping no one would notice. Then a guy from another table came by and told me “you might want to try the pointers”. After I did my business, that led to an interesting conversation about city versus rural life.
One thing I’ve noticed while riding in Nebraska is that almost all the people driving in the opposite direction wave as they pass. My left hand was getting tired from waving back!
Nenzel – population 8 – had a small downtown with all abandoned buildings, but with a fully working Pepsi machine in front of one of them. Strange. It wasn’t the kind that could take dollar bills, but I wasn’t about to complain…
I crossed into the Central Time Zone somewhere east of Cody. Funny how this seemed to be dividing line between hot and dry, versus hot and humid…
The waitress in Cody had told me that Valentine had a good city park to camp in. When I got into town, I thought I had found the park, but decided against camping there because it being used as a hangout. So I’m at the RV park. The park I saw was a small park by the bike trail – the city park is something different, with showers and toilets, oak trees, etc. At least I’m walking distance from the only open restaurants in town (it’s Sunday).
BikingBrian 