As planned, our Highway 83 amble ended in Valentine, Nebraska, just as it did last time, when we were heading north, up from the Kansas border but didn't know we were on the"83". Only when we settled in for the night in Valentine and saw the Souder's Highway 83 publication did I realize where we had been. Got some good pictures anyway, in spite of the fact that there were no expectation other than to breathe in the sweet, vast grass lands of the Sand Hills. At the time, I also lamented that every time we were in Valentine I never seemed to be inspired to photograph anything. This time, there was the agenda of punctuating the 83 thing, so we were on a mission. Jackie got us off to a good start with this great take on Main Street.
Photo by Jackie
Slept well after that mad dash through South Dakota, which I am now regretting (the mad dash part) as I look back on things, but we had only 10 days, and there was still the north east quadrant of Nebraska to cover, so as always, next time... Woke up refreshed and ready to see what there was to see in Valentine before heading east for the day. Jackie set the bar pretty high.
Two takes on the abandoned grain elevators at the end of town where the railroad used to run all along Route 20 until it was torn up in the 1950's so that the trucks being produced by the politically powerful auto industry could haul the grain in what is only now being understood as one of a thousand short sighted, corporately/politically driven decisions that had come to bite us in the ass. In addition to gross inefficiency, it has turned almost all the towns built up along the railway sidings into ghost towns of abandoned, tumbled down buildings and rotting grain elevators, devoid of purpose, people and a future; Kilgore, Cody, Merriman, Gordon, all of them all the way across Norther Nebraska to Harrison. As the county seat, Valentine has fared better, for the most part...
Except for the Valentine Motel which has not managed to do so well on that short stretch of highway south of the town where where the 83 and 20 converge for a mile or two before going their own ways.
As always, our stay in Valentine would have been diminished if not for our ritual Mexican meal at Milo and Max which was highlighted in a prior posting. Food was still great. Had the beans and rice and a cheese enchilada and Jackie had the evening special, a tostada that was big and good. So big that she could eat only half. The other half we had for lunch the next day, solar heated in the back window of our car somewhere around Bristow, Nebraska with a couple of bananas we had nicked from the motel buffet and some airline cheese that we stashed for future reference.
Milo and Max with Jackie outside and ready to eat.
Tomorrow, Highway 20 east as far as the morning will take me, and then back to Valentine. And they do take their name seriously...
if you haven't noticed by now...
Pablo
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