Friday July 16, 2010

Today is the first day of vacation. I looked back at last year's and we left at the same time of year (Friday July 17, 2009). Jim had us up early and we were out the door at 6:15 a.m. Stopped in Stuart, Iowa for a Burger King breakfast. It was a drive, drive, drive day. Again, we packed the refrigerated cooler with healthy things to eat and stop at a rest area in Nebraska to eat our lunch, saving not so much money, but calories in a sedentary ride. Arrived at North Platte, NE at 2:15 p.m. Right now we are at the hotel resting before we take off for the sights, which I will post later. We have already started gathering what will become the mountain of tourist information brochures. I brought a bunch of cd's along which we normally don't take time to listen to. Many months ago Jim bought a set of Time Life cd's of Golden Age of Country. There are a lot of good ole songs on these. However, as we pulled into a rest stop (which we do frequently to stretch our legs and re-energize the buttocks), there was an awful country song on. I said "if Kari were in the car right now she would be tearing her hair out, scratching her eyes out and vomiting." Jim found that quite humerous and continued to chuckle about it for quite a while and also admitted a few of the songs where even to hokey for him. Now I know if I ever want information out of Kari, I'll just tie her to a chair and start playing that song, she'll crack.....can't wait to play it for you, Kari.

Went to the Bailey Rail Yard, home of the world's largest raily yard which is the Union Pacific. I don't know whether to be happy or sad, today we both got in for the "Senior" price. The yard is 8 miles long and 2 miles wide, 155 trains a day leave the yard. There is a tour you can observe the yard and we were there quite a while watching the cars move around. Also quite an interesting story of a canteen at the depot during WWII to feed the troops coming and going. Now going to eat supper and find a few more side attractions. Tomorrow off to Greeley, CO so Jim can smell the cattle. He just informed me today and tomorrow are "his" days of this vacation and the rest of the trip will be for me.