Wednesday, May 28, 2008

bold Nebraska

We were in Nebraska for Memorial Day. Drove 6 hours on Friday to cover 280 miles, with 30-40mph crosswinds tugging at the canoe the whole way. Pulled into North Platte in horizontal rain, Jeff saw tornados coming down from the clouds. We sat in a restaurant and discussed options. Hotelling it was the consensus, got a 2-bedroom hotel suite, the wives and children were very happy. After the kids had swum for an hour in the hotel pool, we watched kayaking on TV, how pathetic. 5 inches of rain and 60mph winds in our destination town of Valentine that night, so I think it was the right decision.

Next day attempting to pitch the monster 8-man tent in a Nebraska light breeze, started setup with tent backed to the wind: by the time it was up the wind had swung through 180 degrees, then a strong gust blew up the tent. I mean literally blew up, the flysheet exploded along the seams, pole shattered, splitrings holding pole anchor points on the inner were straightened out.. etcetera. Then it blew away, looked like a giant tumbleweed thundering through the campsite, nearly took out some tourons walking through to see Smith Falls. Once we'd subdued it again, drove into Valentine for a new tent. Young's Mercantile didn't sell tents but recommended Fred's Bait Shop, Fred had only 2-man tents unfortunately. The hardware store had a 5-man luckily, a mere $160. Next time I'm just checking straight into the hotel and staying there, it will be cheaper.

River high and chilly. On Mem. Day it was a dark and stormy morn, ranger came up as we were packing and said 'you can't leave now, it's just about to start raining again'. Everyone's a humorist.

bold Nebraska ? the song is always in my head when driving to NE. But I see the lyric is actually 'all aboard, Nebraska's our next stop' where I'd always heard 'bold Nebraska's our next stop'. I like my version better. This turns out to be a mondegreen

1 comment:

raymondduncan said...

You're not alone. I have always heard "Woah (or Oh,) Les Bode, Nebraska's our next stop" in the studio version. I know in live versions he says "All aboard" but I DON'T hear that in the studio version.