Ever since coming across an October 1978 edition of National Geographic in my dentist's office many years ago that had an article about "Nebraska's Sand Hills" in it, I knew that was someplace I needed to see. Like so many articles in NG, most of the pictures were of the people in the area, but it was evocative, there was one good little map suggesting that state road 2, beginning in Grand Island and ending in Alliance, pretty well bisected the 19,000 square mile sea of sand hills that dominated the western part of the state.
We left Lincoln a little too late in the day expecting to spend the night in Grand Island and then beginning the journey along Route 2 from there. Once we got to Grand Isle, to the uneducated eye, there appeared to be no compelling reason to be there, a decision I now regret because it was the beginning of the journey, but at the time, how could I have known what the journey was, so we decided to keep driving to Broken Bow, driven by an evocative name that offered hope that this would offer the "authentic" Nebraska experience we were in search of. Because it was now even later in the day, it was more of a mad dash to Broken Bow and bypassing what I now know were many missed opportunities. But how could I have known then. The only town we did stop to see between Grand Island and Broken Bow was Hazard and it's little downtown that consisted of about 2 unoccupied storefronts. So much was missed along the way, but like so many of our journeys, it was a learning curve that only made itself known along the way and even then, there was so much to learn. Only looking back do you see what there was to be seen, how much you missed and hope you will get the chance to return to get it right. On the balance, there was a lot good, but as always, it is the regrets of what could have been that prevail.
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