Valentine, Nebraska Day

What are residents of Valentine, Nebraska called? Valentines? I hope so.

Eleven years ago I was there in Valentine -- amidst a six-week Great Plains roadtrip. I really enjoyed much of western Nebraska. A look at Fort Robinson, where Crazy Horse was betrayed (you can stay in the barracks if you want). A solitary walk through the open plains panhandle's Toadstool Geologic State Park. A picnic with Wyoming views up top the massive, unreal Scott's Bluff National Monument. In the cow town of Valentine, I stayed the night. I looked at the Niobrara River, I bought a pair of Wranglers on Main Street that I still wear and I met two locals, local Valentines, who caught my attention.

Here's my diary excerpts from May 2001:

A 77-yr-old man runs the Valentine Motel on Hwy 20, just east of Main St. Nice car out front, I mentioned. ‘Yes sir,’ deep clear voice. "That was my wife’s first car. ’53 Ford. I told her not to sell it, when she did, I went back to the dealer and bought it." Lots of dolls in the lobby, and 1960s/70s Neb postcards for sale: four for a dollar."Oh that’s not even a bit of them. There's dolls all over the house. Some say this is more of a museum than a motel. The collection goes back 200 years." His family has been in Nebraska for 53 years. Answered promptly, as if he expected.

Then I went for supper.

Forty-something waitress at Jordan’s Café sat down at my table, coffeepot in hand, when I asked about canoeing the Niobrara. She’s never seen a snake out there, "but I can’t stand them. If I see a water snake that big (gestures about her full reach, about five-foot-five) I’m out of the water."

Happy Valentine's Day Valentine.

Journal: Omaha Man, 2001

I'm in the long process of digitizing a couple dozen journals put together on Lonely Planet, and other, research trips over the past decade or so. I really liked this guy, met in Omaha on my first LP assignment: updating the Great Plains chapter of the USA guidebook in the spring of 2001:

William Reeves volunteers at Omaha's Great Plains Black History Museum. He's 74, originally from Kansas City. Says he played alto and tenor sax in the late '40s down there. Another musician he knew -- a 'bully' - once hit a heckler 'with his horn,' he said. 'Then someone beat him up so bad he died.' Asked if he liked jazz today. 'Oh, sure. You just have to be where it's at, y'know? Preston Love at the Omaha Star [a 'black paper' nearby], he played horn with Basie. He'd know.' Williams says he regularly goes back to Kansas City -- 'for barbecue runs, and for funerals.'

Random Photo of the Week: Enter Nebraska

For many people, Nebraska is one of those states in the way. Between cities and mountains, here and there. But when I first drove into Nebraska, it meant something. Growing up in Oklahoma, Nebraska was a fierce yet respected football rival. So crossing the Kansas-Nebraska line for the first time, I leaned forward in my car set -- itching to note, survey, savor all the differences that come from something as artificial as a random state boundary not based on geography.

Attention soon turned to something else: the massive midnight cloud moving in from the west.

I grew up in tornado alley, but the only time I've been scared was that drive into Nebraska. As hail started to fall sideways across the deserted highway, I kept moving forward. Should I stop out here? A radio DJ was yelling, 'This is not a test. We under a severe tornado warning. Get someplace safe.' I finally reached a small town, and pulled behind a small dental office and waited for the storm to pass wondering if Okies were really welcome or not.

Favorite Place in the World

Travel talk is a lot like the "Price Is Right Game" Plinko. You drop little chips that bounce on metal pegs unexpectedly left and right (like chatting between funny souvenirs, stolen wallets, great banana pancakes, taxi scams, mountains climbed, dandruff). Eventually on the gameshow, the chip lands in one of the side-by-side buckets that offer prizes ($5000, $1000, $0). For travel talk it usually leads to a single question: "What's your favorite place you've ever been?"

After spending about a couple days of every five traveling since 9/11, more or less, I get asked this a lot. I tend to have two answers:

[smug reply] Travel isn't a contest, brother. Sounds like bongo-circle chatter, but truly travel is less about the destination than how you travel. Seeing Red Square, the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal and Tikal were remarkable, each, but I had about equal fun driving alone across Nebraska's panhandle and seeing where Crazy Horse died. Or across Bulgaria. Though some are places I'm more likely to return than others (for example, I'll never stop going to Mexico or Vietnam -- the latter's version of "The Price is Right" shown below), I can never say one is the best, or even the favorite.

[real reply] Home. Nothing really beats home after a long trip. When your travel radar and curiosity are still on overdrive, after a trip on the Trans-Siberian or a train ride to Montréal, and you see where you live more closely, with more perspective than before. It's the only time I really stop and chat with strangers, note tiny architectural details atop an early 20th-century apartment building, how waitstaff are dressed (or the fact they give you free coffee refills!), and how we line up for bagels or sit wherever we want in movie theaters.

Home's great in those days before it starts to settle to routine, BUT it takes travel to find it.