Photos from Trip to Grand Island, Nebraska, and Morrill, Kansas

Today we took the Graceful Garden quilt to Grand Island to enter it in the Nebraska State Fair.  The fair starts August 28 and continues until September 7.

Approaching Chapman, Nebraska

State Fair Boulevard

Water slide

The Nebraska Building

After leaving Grand Island, we went on through southeast Nebraska to the small town of Morrill in northeast Kansas, where we picked up a four-wheeler Larry had purchased to take the place of the six-wheeled Big Boss he recently sold.  

Platte River

See the Great Blue heron?

Approaching Exeter, Nebraska

Young turkey vulture atop the barn

♪ ♫ I've been workin' ♪ ♫ on the railroad!  ♪ ♫

Odell, Nebraska, water tower

Pulling into the village of Odell, population 302 (plus one pit bull) to stretch our legs.

(This isn't the aforementioned pit bull.)

See the Jeep and trailer over there?

Larry spots an 'hysterical' marker, as he calls them.

He can never refrain from ringing a big bell...

But he didn't expect it to be so loud!  Just look at him cringing.  :-D

"That was loud!"

('Course, he did have one hearing aid on.)

(His bluetooth was in the other ear -- that's the one you can see.)

That's the aforementioned pit bull.  He barked, but it was more obligatory than anything else.  He wagged, too.  The wag seemed less hypocritical than the bark.  With a large beef steak, I could've likely made friends with him.

Their garage spilled.

This, we decided, was a unicycle trainer ... 'was' being the operative word.

I do hope the person who rode the wheels off this thing (or crashed it) has not been issued license to ride the one-wheeled version.

Sarah Lynn

United Methodist Church, Axtell, Kansas

Sanders Flea Market, Baileyville, Kansas

Turkey vulture

Definition of Kansas ‘boonies’:  area where all you can see in any direction for 30 miles are fields of corn or beans, pastures full of curious lambs, and a friendly, lively farmer of at least 85 years of age, driving an even older John Deere tractor down a dirt lane leading to a tumbledown barn, beside which is parked a shiny 2015 GMC Sierra 3500 Denali HD truck.  (Didn’t expect that, did you?)

Turkey vulture

Wild turkeys

One of my nieces (at age 5) once called that red hangy-down thing on a turkey a 'gobble'.  

(It's a wattle, by the way.)

Funny how far out of the way you can drive (in the boonies, yet) when you enter an address into your GPS that's just one digit off.

Great Blue heron

White egret

In Morrill, Kansas, population 226

Yes, there are oil wells on both ends of Nebraska.

St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Falls City, Nebraska

Heading toward Indian Cave State Park

The trailer with the four-wheeler on it was a bit noisy behind our Jeep on the bumpy gravel road, making the cows 'turn aside to see this great sight'.

Entering Indian Cave State Park

There was a lot of construction equipment here and there, as they are still repairing the park after the bad floods of 2011 -- and also the flooding from Sunday night, when they got five inches of rain.

St. Deroin General Store, where, when it is open, you can see old-time crafts such as candle-dipping, and learn how to make Granny's Lye Soap.  Broom-making is done on an 1879 machine.

One-room schoolhouse built in 1908 and restored in 1978.

Old Singer Treadle

Yes, Larry had to ring the school bell.

In this State Park are populations of black squirrels, Eastern grays, fox squirrels, and the rarer flying squirrels, which have mostly disappeared from other parts of the state.  Around our neck of the woods, we have only the fox squirrel, like the one whose picture I took in Odell, Nebraska (above).

Water flowed through here, cutting away the banks and leaving tree roots exposed.  Some of the trees were leaning alarmingly.  We didn't dilly-dally.

Viewing deck from which can be seen the wide panorama of the Missouri Valley.

We couldn’t see the cave, because there was road construction on account of recent flooding, and the hike would’ve put us there after dark. 

St. Deroin Cemetery

Uh, oh; the left front tire is 15 pounds low.  Must've run over something sharp when we turned around in a field out in those boonies I was talking about.

Unfortunately, the tire shop in the little town of Auburn was closed for the day.  But they aired up the tire, and we hurried on north to the bigger town of Nebraska City.

Wal-Mart to the rescue!  They had our tire patched in 15 minutes.

We had supper at a Valentino’s Grand Italian Buffet in Nebraska City.  I like all-you-can-eat buffets.  I like getting tiny servings of just about every type of food they serve – though this time I opted to stick mainly to salads, fresh vegetables, and fruit.  (I did go back for just a wee bit more bread pudding, though.  Mmmm, mmm.)

And that's the end of the pictures, since by the time we got out of Valentino's, it was dark.