Highway 83, Valentine, Nebraska

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

   

Moonrise over Milo and Max, Valentine, Nebraska

It was getting late in the afternoon, and we were pretty hungry, and had our minds set on Milo and Max restaurant in Valentine, where we had some great mexican food last year and were looking forward to more of the same, if it was still even there anymore.  You never know these days.  This preoccupation could account for my tunnel vision during the last leg of out Nebraska Highway 83 journey.

Would have gotten there sooner, in fact we would have gotten everywhere a lot sooner, if not for the incessant 5  to 10 minute delays on the highways throughout Nebraska as a result of the economic recovery program dollars at work with states ripping up miles and miles of perfectly good and serviceable roadways and replacing them with new layers of unnecessary asphalt.  Don't know where they get all that stuff, but the supply seems unlimited and they are repaving anything they can get their hands on whether it needs it or not.  The money is there.  I guess you use it or loose it.  Here's us stuck at one such lengthy delay and Jackie waiting patiently in the car, while I am out and about meeting fellow travelers and taking pictures.  Our trusty steed, a Ford Fiesta, looks pretty clean here...

There's lots of time to get out of the car and talk to your neighbors.  Its amazing how much personal information strangers on the highway with time to kill are willing to share.  You don't even have to ask.  I met a dog named George W traveling with this very opinionated guy, you learn to keep your mouth shut when talking to Rabid Republicans, a guy who just broke up with his girlfriend in Iowa who was heading to the Dakotas to find work, and an old farmer from Iowa on his way to visit his brother in South Dakota, who was not doing too well.  And when you don't feel like get out of the car, there's often interesting reading material right in front of you.

Took longer than we expected, but got to Valentine, made a left on Highway 20, and there it was awaiting us with open arms!!!

If you look in the upper right corner, its the moon.  Not quite Ansel Adams's Moonrise over Hernandez, but then, I'm not Ansel Adams.  Had a great meal of cheese enchiladas with green salsa, and beans and rice.  Talked a bit to Jacqui, a certified pipe welder who loves to cook and took over as the present operator of the place, who I mistook for Twyla, her partner or something who was running it last year when we were there and who started the restaurant, but for some unstated reason is not there these days.  Milo and Max are the names of their horses.  The food is well made, tastes great and is quite inexpensive and there's plenty of it.  The beans are vegetarian, no lard (mantica in Spanish, which you may need to know here and there if the staff doesn't speak english and you need to find out), which are not easy to find if you care about those things.  If you're in Valentine, go there!!!

Last year we got talking to Clarence and Mary, an old retired farm couple who said they ate there 3 or 4 times a week.  Didn't see them, but Jacqui said they were fine and coming around regularly, in case you were wondering.  Left full and happy and checked in at our motel where I happened upon a copy of a small newspaper published 4 times a year called"Canada to Mexico...via Highway 83", published by the Sowders, Ron and Maudene, who operate out at 304 North Cemetery Road, Tryon, Nebraska, 69167.  Its full  of good information and history of the Sandhills and Highway 83 and has great stories.

It was only then, at the end of that leg of our journey that I realized where we had been and what we had done.  If I had only known at the start that we were part of the much bigger Highway 83 story I would have been more attentive.  Thinking about it, its kind of a metaphor for life.  You don't know what you are doing half the time while you're doing it, you just bumble though the best you can, and then there's not much you can do about it when its over.  Luckily, looking back at the pictures, I did OK, some good pictures and some regrets as always, which is all most of us can say, but all in all, a decent job.  Luckily and hopefully, in this case there is the possibility for a do over next year if all is well.

Tomorrow, its west on Highway 20 for a 2 or 3 day ramble toward the Wyoming border with stops in Cody, Kilgore, and Merriman, et al to fill in some photoblanks left festering from our last trip.  The situation out here is quite fragile, so you can't be sure what you will find.

                                                                              Pablo

Addendum...

This was the second time we stayed over night in Valentine and I didn't take any pictures.  Nothing caught my eye.  I did try, but...Walking through town in the morning I did meet Jacqui, and we talked for a while.  Felt like a regular.