Fourth of July: Elm Creek to Oconto, Nebraska
Setting off from Elm Creek the morning of the Fourth of July, we thought that Calloway would be our destination. We had called their parks department the previous day and learned that they had a pool and free city camping, but with one caveat: we had missed their Fourth celebration by a week. Although disappointed, we figured we couldn’t pass up a pool and free camping.
The first twenty miles to Lexington were effortless: the morning air was cool, and the road flat. This stretch would be our only ride along the Platte River through its wide, flat valley. It had served as a transportation corridor spanning many decades and transport technologies. First were the Pawnee and Oto plains tribes who had walked its banks on foot. French explorer Étienne de Veniard Sieur de Bourgmont was the first European to visit the valley and also became the first to typecast the Cornhusker state as completely flat, naming the river Nebraskier, an Oto word meaning “flat waters”. French trappers plied its waters with their loads of furs, translating the name to Platte, French for “flat”. In the 1800’s, white settlers by the thousands followed it with wagons pulled by oxen or mules on the Oregon and Mormon Trails (a two-lane immigrant super-highway, religiously segregated: Mormons on the north bank, all others on the south). The Pony Express would also make use of the Platte valley to speed the mail west, and eventually the Union Pacific Railroad would stretch its way westward through the Platte Valley en route to the famed golden spike in Promontory Summit, Utah, connecting with the Central Pacific line stretching east and completing our first transcontinental RR. When the automotive age dawned, our nation’s first transcontinental road, the Lincoln Highway, was laid along its length. And finally, when mobile Americans decided that getting there quickly was more important than enjoying the drive, I-80 was built, allowing yet another generation to cross the width of Nebraska under the (erroneous) impression that the entire state is as flat as a pool table.
Along this stretch, the old highway and the still bustling rail lines were side by side, with the incessant drone of interstate traffic mercifully out of earshot. Every few minutes, a mile-long train would clickety-clack past, the east bound ones filled with heaping piles of black coal headed for Kansas City power plants and the west-bound ones returning with cars empty to fetch another load.
The call of songbirds and Red Winged Blackbirds provided the soundtrack for our peaceful ride, until one of the black birds decided we were too close to his turf. He dove a few times for my (Aaron’s) head, sending me into hisses and loud shouts in an attempt to drive the bird away. We have observed for the past few months that these brave little birds are perpetually chasing and pecking at hawks six times their size, but today’s attack was the first time in 11,000 miles that the plucky little birds decided that we were a threat. I had a difficult transition back to enjoying their calls, signaling an early warning shout if any others came near.
Just before Lexington, we passed folks setting up for an all-day Bluegrass, food and fireworks festival. They let us use their porta-johns, understanding that it is difficult to find cover in the plains when nature calls. Once in town, a local told us that the only grocery store lay three miles south, out of our way. “The only thing you’ll find headin’ north are a couple of convenience stores.” We decided to brave gas station fare instead of adding miles to the day.
Yet akin to our experience in Dobbin, TX, where a black man assumed we’d only want to know where the white churches were, apparently this fellow in Lexington didn’t think we’d want to know about Las Vasquez Market, a well-stocked Hispanic grocery store right on our way. It had everything we needed, and we enjoyed browsing the unfamiliar treats for a snack. We finally selected a gelatin and cream cup, a sweet roll from an un-labeled glass case, and a two-liter bottle of carbonated “manzana verde” or green apple beverage, chuckling at how “unpatriotic” our snack might sound to some.
Turning north on Nebraska 21, we instantly got faster and hotter, due to the stout south wind. We also faced a formidable climb out of the Platte Valley. Usually when the road in front of us begins to climb, we groan and brace ourselves. But with the wind at our back, we could shoot over the hills easily, and found ourselves in awe of the landscape. This was not the Nebraska we had expected: bright green hills rolling and bulging as far as we could see, dotted with clusters of black cows grazing on the endless supply of verdant grasses. As we wound and bobbed our way up and among the hills, we relished the rare look at a largely unaltered landscape, imagining these vistas must have looked mulch the same for the Plains Indians (minus the fence posts and plus the millions of buffalo.) The wind hummed and tickled the tall grasses, which bent in waves and gave shape and color to the invisible force.
We began to get hungry for lunch and hoped there would be at least a gas station in the tiny dot of Oconto, which we expected to hit at 46 miles. All morning we had been lamenting the fact that we passed up a chance to spend the fourth in Holdrege, the city we had stopped in the day before to fix our bike. Both the bike shop owners and even a customer we chatted with were curious about our trip and immediately offered to host us. We demurred, explaining that we had to keep moving, but they both lamented, “Too bad you can’t stay for the fourth!”
As we rode north on Nebraska 21, we repeatedly chastised ourselves for that decision: “What were we thinking? We were due a rest day anyway!” Yet we were in for a surprising treat in Oconto, population 141.
At first glance, we saw no sign of life, much less a place to eat lunch. A sign in one yard pointed: “Oconto: 0 miles. U R there” A block later we noticed a street with bank, community center, feed store, and (surprise!) a restaurant (which we would have missed had we not seen people walking out with to-go containers in hand). We stepped in to the “Winds of Change Market and Deli,” where a free-standing chalkboard listed a special of BBQ beef sandwich, baked beans, frosted brownie and iced tea for $6.50, from 5-9 pm for the “Oconto Fun Days”.
The interior of the deli was small, but bright and open. A wall-size picture of the brilliant green Nebraska prairie dotted with wildflowers under a deep blue sky decorated the south wall. On the back wall hung a rack of white ceramic coffee mugs, about half of which were reserved for faithful customers, their names hand painted on the side: Dave, Roy, Darrell, Judy, Linda, etc. To the left of the coffee, a deli counter and case displaying meats and cheeses formed the boundary between the dining area and the kitchen.
A petite woman in a t-shirt and Levi’s was bustling around the back of the kitchen, back turned to us. When she saw us, she said, “I saw you come in on that bike and figured you might be coming in here.” She then gave us a whirlwind of options for lunch then set about making our panini with a side of corn/black bean salad while chatting with me as if we had been friends for years.
“I’m fine with serving a few who trickle through for lunch today, but my real project is getting ready for tonight’s dinner. We’re expecting at least 80, and I’ve never done this before, so I put the beef in the oven yesterday around 11 and was up here until 2:30 this morning waitin’ for it to get done!”
“How long have you guys had this restaurant?” Laura asked.
“Just a month now. Not sure yet if it was a mistake or not. It was just sad—the men of the town had no place to come and cry in their coffee about their farms. This little community’s strugglin’ to stay alive. We’ve got the community center that houses the library (which just got wi-fi and has 3 computers online), Big Jim’s bar, the volunteer fire department, the bank, and Eggleston’s gas station.”
She came to sit at the table next to us as we enjoyed our ham panini on her homemade bread for which she had even milled the grain herself.
“That gas station represents exactly what I love about this small town. You take your car there and they come out to you to fill up your tank and wash your windshield for no extra charge. That’s the way it used to be when I was growin’ up. But I tell you what, the high oil prices don’t affect me badly right now because I got everything I need close – we raise our own goats, hens, and grow our own vegetables. But I feel sorry for Mr. Eggleston. He’s havin’ a tough time right now because every time he gets that tank filled up they want $50,000 up front. They used to fill it three or four times and let him pay at the end of the month. And his pumps are old and can’t charge more than $3.99/gallon ,so now he’s tryin’ to scrape together $400 bucks to upgrade ‘em so he can charge what it’s costin’ him to get the fuel. I just hope the people here in town are smart enough to keep him in business, because if he goes down, this town’s gone. It’s gonna hurt to have to drive 32 miles round trip for gas. But no matter how hard times get, they’ll treat you right over there. You take your car in for an oil change, and he’ll wash it and detail it at no extra cost.”
As we chatted, I suggested we stay here and celebrate the Independence Day weekend at the Oconto Fun Days which started at 3 with a sand volleyball tournament. The party continued all weekend with activities ranging from a horseshoe tournament to salamander races to bingo to a street dance. The owner/cook/waitress, who introduced herself as Nicki, backed me up with an excited, “Yeah! I live just across the street there, and you’re welcome to shower at my place and pitch your tent if you need to. If anybody messes with you, you just send them to talk to me.”
Nicki and her husband Joe had moved here two years ago. “We had passed through here a long time ago, and I even wrote in my journal ‘Oconto’s a nice little town, but could use some cleaning up.’ Well, a tornado came through in 2000 and blew half the town away. That was clean enough for me, so we bought that old farmhouse off the internet and have been here ever since. By the way, don’t ever do that – buy a house off the internet sight unseen. It’s been a nightmare to fix up. This old place here [pointing to her surroundings in the restaurant] was a bank and it was in terrible shape. So we gutted it. I put windows in the kitchen – I have to have those, because now I spend more of my life here than in my own home. I’d go crazy if I couldn’t look outside every once in awhile. You can see where the old vault was – I figure if another tornado comes through I’ll just duck in there. Those walls are four feet thick!”
“We did what you’re doing, but with a Greyhound bus and a horse trailer. And I tell ya what, we were always taken care of at the right times. I remember one day, we were headed into the Minneapolis area, and we were exhausted. The horses had been out a couple times in the past two days, but they really needed a place where they could walk around. We got into a gas station – and this is how God works – we asked the attendant if there was any place we could park for the night with horses. She said, ‘Let me make a phone call’. Her dad owned the county fairgrounds and he opened the place up and told us, ‘It’s yours for the night.’ ”
After lunch and a walk around town, which took about ten minutes at a leisurely pace, we returned to the deli. Nicki gave Laura directions to her house and told her where she could find towels. While Laurashowered, Nicki got me a spot on a team that was short one male player for the volleyball tournament. The rest of the afternoon was spent playing, spectating, and mingling. For every three people we met, one would ask if we had a place to stay, shower, or laundry to do; the people of Oconto made us feel as welcome as we possibly could have.
Nicki’s husband Joe showed up at around 5:30 with Meredith, the fifteen-year old daughter of Nicki’s “sister in Christ” from the Finger Lakes Region of New York. Meredith had just flown in to spend a few weeks helping Nicki with the restaurant and garden to, in Nicki’s words, “learn a good work ethic and experience the West for awhile.”
Upon meeting Joe, we liked him immediately. He spoke slowly, with an accent that seemed somewhere between North Dakota and upstate New York. He had close-cut salt-and-pepper hair (more salt than pepper) and wore faded wranglers and lace-up boots. Though Joe had grown up in Upstate New York on a dairy farm, he went to horseshoeing school in 1994 in Oklahoma City. “Horseshoein’s been a good career but sometimes it burns you out, ya know? Made some money in it but there’s never enough of that. Kinda gave up on money.”
My team placed second in the volleyball tournament, after which we rode across the highway and up the long driveway that led to Joe and Nikki’s farmhouse, or “Oconto Heights” as a carved tree stump informed us.
Making friends with their pets was easy. Val, the energetic Border collie immediately dropped a stick at my feet, backed up, and crouched, ready to spring into action should I participate in the game of fetch. Squeak, a gray and white tom cat rubbed against my leg and immediately lay over on his back for a belly rub as soon as I reached down to stroke his sleek coat.
After setting up the tent, we laid in it listening to the news on NPR and stroking Squeak, who had followed us in and fallen asleep on our sleeping bags.
After dark, we rode down to the ball field for Oconto’s true community fireworks display: everyone bought their own, everyone brought their own, and everyone shot their own. But since they came together at the ball field, what would have been fifteen private backyard celebrations became a massive fireworks extravaganza, shared and enjoyed by all. Though most brought lawn chairs, some chose to remain in their vehicles for the show (perhaps to avoid the mosquitoes), honking out their approval for especially spectacular volleys.
Though not exactly on par with the display over Lake Michigan we had watched last year in Chicago, Oconto’s celebration had its own element of excitement. Instead of professional pyro-technicians at a safe distance on barges, we were surrounded by amateur pyros (possibly inebriated) who regularly called out “Better step back, I don’t know what this one does!” We had to crane our necks far back since these low altitude consumer grade mortars were exploding directly over our heads.
We watched until we’d had our fill then headed back to our tent in Oconto Heights, where we spent a restful night’s sleep away from the explosive celebrations below.
July 5th: Rest Day in Oconto
We awoke to roosters crowing and the ease of a rest day. In the cool of the morning we spent some time writing and listening to the radio, then Nicki came out and offered to throw in some of our laundry. “We’re goin’ down to the restaurant in about an hour to make breakfast and you’re more than welcome to join us.”
We did join them, and the five of us enjoyed a breakfast of homemade toast, fresh farm eggs, and all-natural sausage links. After Joe blessed the breakfast, Nicki re-iterated to us “While you’re here, mi casa su casa, and mi restaurante su restaurante!” Post-breakfast, Joe and I played checkers until we heard the parade announcer fire up the sound system outside.
Stalling until the parade got underway, the emcee gave a run-down of the day’s events: “Mary Johnson got out of bed in time to head up the horseshoe tournament which started at 7 o’clock this morning, and there she is over there still competing with the final contestants. Mary, give everyone a wave. [We later got the update that Mary had won her own tournament.] Also, at one o’clock we’ll have the critter races. Bring your toads, turtles and salamanders. If you don’t have a salamander, we can probably rent you one at a real affordable rate. All the young and young at heart are invited to join in.”
The American Legion provided the white-haired color guard, while a local girl quavered out her rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. Thus began a procession of antique cars driven by Oconto alumni, floats loosely based on the “At the Movies” theme, Shriners puttering around in their Tin Lizzies, feed lot trucks with drivers taking a vacation from distributing grain to cows to throw candy to kids, and even the local bankers tossing coins out of a horse-drawn carriage for the kids to pick up. The emcee sang “God Bless America” to signal the end of the parade and everyone headed over to the Community Center for the free lunch.
A local family we met in line invited us to sit with them over the lunch of hamburgers, pork ’n beans, potato chips and iced tea the community was serving up. They too extended a redundant invitation of hospitality, further cementing Oconto’s reputation of one of the most welcoming towns we’d visited thus far.
After a short nap, we played Bingo at the American Legion hall where three octogenarian year veterans were officiating, using a hopper filled with wooden balls to select the numbers. It was obvious they had played more than a few games of Bingo in their lifetime, yet managed to keep it fun by calling out creative winning patterns: picture frame (just the borders filled in), love letter (an “L” with a postage stamp in the top right corner), railroad tracks (two parallel lines), etc. After not winning any, despite sitting there for an hour with three cards each, we headed down to the feed store to indulge in the fifty cent slices of watermelon and scoops of homemade peach and peppermint ice cream. Stopping in at the deli, we found Nicki and Meredith preparing casseroles for the breakfast buffet that was to follow the street dance that night.
We spent the evening talking with Joe as he fed the goats. Though quiet and mellow, he was a hard worker, likely due to his upbringing on a dairy farm. As clouds billowed and darkened to the north, Joe told us why they had decided to move to Nebraska: “Well, you never hear anyone say, ‘Me and the kids are gonna take a vacation to Nebraska this year.’ Land and homes are pretty cheap here and we figure they’ll stay that way. When we lived in Montana, the Californians started comin’ in and buyin’ everything up and pretty soon it felt like we were livin’ in Los Angeles.”
As dusk set in and the skies threatened a thunderstorm, we headed back to the deli and laid low while Nicki stressed about the meal preparations. Terry and Bev, a couple from Broken Bow we had met the previous evening, stopped in to visit and we played a dice game called Farkle.
Once the skies had cleared and the sun had fully set, the local band named “South Loup Sunrise” began belting out a mix of country and rock oldies. Cattle pen fencing was used to designate the area for the street dance, and admission was charged to raise money for the alumni association. Though ostensibly a “dance”, most of the crowd sat on picnic tables and enjoyed each other’s company and the offerings from the beer garden. After a few hours of music, Nicki opened her doors for the midnight breakfast buffet, and soon the deli was packed. After a trip through the buffet line ourselves, the late hour caught up with us and we headed back to the tent, feeling we couldn’t have found a more perfect town in which to celebrate the special weekend.
Just a quick update: we’re halfway across Minnesota now, about to go “discover” the geographic center near Brainerd. We had a nice break for our 2nd anniversary at a hotel in Albert Lea, then enjoyed another rest with some AMAZING hosts in St. Paul. While in the Twin Cities, the local TV station did a really good piece about our journey. Check out the video while it’s still up.
Yesterday we pushed 76 long miles (against a headwind!) to make it to Brainerd, because our maps indicated that the city park offered camping. We rolled into the lush park on Rice Lake around 6:30pm, encouraged to see so many people out enjoying the beautiful evening: frisbee golfers, picnicers, people swimming in the lake, and groups playing volleyball. But our excitement at the park quickly turned to disappointment when we saw the numerous signs surrounding the lovely “campground”: NO TENTS ALLOWED. We tried to plead our case to the campground host, but she was away from her RV. 
Luckily, we ran into a nice guy who’d seen us on the TV news the night before. His name was Tim, and he invited us home to stay at his place without hesitation. “I lived outside for a couple of years, so I know how it is.” It turns out that Tim and his wife and kids had been homeless for two years, including two brutal Minnesota winters, here in Brainerd. “Yeah, it was tough, then some people let us stay with them because they were Christians. But now we’re square, got a nice rent house, and I’ve been planting a garden in the back this year to grow some vegetables.” 
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