Nebraska

On Sunday morning Tracee and I had our first experience milking goats on the ranch before going to church in Alliance with Charles, Carmen and daughter Cassie. We then had lunch at the local Chinese Restaurant and were joined by Carmen's parents Chris and Marty. We then followed this with some shopping before returning back to the ranch.

The afternoon was spent saddling up the horses and then Tracee and Carmen rode across the property (about an hour and a half ride) to son Cade and daughter-in-law Megan's house. Charles and I followed on the ATV. Tracee used to ride horses when she was a young girl still at school, while for me, I had my first experience riding a horse. I must say sitting on a horse gives you quite a different perspective than what I am used to (an iron horse with two wheels)!

We had some drama when we discovered that about 50 cattle had broken through a fence and were grazing where they shouldn't be. It took some time to temporarily repair the fence, round up the cattle and drive them through to the next pasture.

Once we had all returned back to the ranch later that evening, Charles grilled up some steak on the BBQ, we had a glass or two of wine and then called it a night!

There was another storm that night, with lightening putting on quite a show. There are three aspects of nature in Nebraska I really enjoy. The power of thunderstorms, the way the air temperature rapidly cools down in the evening after a hot day and the spectacular sunsets!

Today (Monday) it was with some sadness that we said goodbye to our hosts. 
Tracee, Carmen, Cassie and I had breakfast at the ranch and then loaded our gear into the Landcruiser for the ride to Charles and Carmen's son Coote and daughter-in-law Christine's house where the Harley has been stored for the last couple of days. On the way we saw our first snake slithering across the road. It was a Bull snake, which apparently are tolerated as they kill the more deadlier Rattlesnakes that are prevalent on the land. We also saw a small turtle - which surprised me as I always assumed they live near water - but not so!

Charles had been up early that morning as it is time for harvesting hay. He met us at the house as we packed up the bike to say goodbye. After some fond farewells we rode down Hwy 385 back towards the town of Alliance and then turned on to Hwy 2 that took us east and away from the Nebraska Panhandle. We were advised this would be a more scenic ride than taking interstate 80. The land was very green with rolling hills most of the way. This part of the country is effectively sand hills with grass growing on it. Some of these sand hills are quite large and made for some interesting contrasts in the landscape as we rode through. We stopped for lunch and fuel in the town of Broken Bow and then reached our destinations of Grand Island at around 5pm. Along the way we had crossed another time zone and had lost an hour (Central Time).

What Tracee and I really enjoyed about our time in both South Dakota and Nebraska, was the opportunity to spend time with some great friends who welcomed us into their homes and allowed us to experience everyday USA 'life'.