While looking for a way to get back on I-80, we drove through Merino, Colorado, population 284. We were surprised to find a business district consisting almost entirely of entertaining fake storefronts. Bradford Rhea, the giraffe tree sculptor, helped design the storefronts, which depict former businesses and were constructed to spruce up the downtown.
On October 14, we entered Nebraska and crossed the North Platte River.
We stopped in North Platte for lunch and visited the tower and visitor center at Bailey Yard, the world's largest train yard, owned by Union Pacific Railway. In this immense (two miles wide and eight miles long) railroad yard, train cars are sorted into trains that average 130 cars each. Thousands of cars pass through this yard each day.
Detail: On the left side of the following photo you can see the "hump," a small hill. Incoming trains are pushed up the hill and uncoupled near the crest. Gravity then pulls each car down into the "bowl" where it is shuttled off to a track where it is coupled onto its scheduled outgoing train.
We arrived in Lincoln that evening and walked around the campus of the University of Nebraska - Lincoln where we saw Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen's Torn Notebook.
The next morning we toured the International Quilt Study Center and Museum in Lincoln. It is affiliated with the University of Nebraska, which is the only place in the world where you can earn a graduate degree in quilt studies.
The I-80 rest stops in Iowa provide interesting bits of information about the state in some very creative ways.
This one illustrates the loss of rich prairie soil from 1850 through 2000.
And this tile mural outside the restrooms illustrates Iowa's ancient loess hills...
...which we saw as we traveled through the western part of the state.
When we crossed the Mississippi River, we knew we were almost home.
So, until we again travel and blog...
