Valentine, Nebraska Day

What are residents of Valentine, Nebraska called? Valentines? I hope so.

Eleven years ago I was there in Valentine -- amidst a six-week Great Plains roadtrip. I really enjoyed much of western Nebraska. A look at Fort Robinson, where Crazy Horse was betrayed (you can stay in the barracks if you want). A solitary walk through the open plains panhandle's Toadstool Geologic State Park. A picnic with Wyoming views up top the massive, unreal Scott's Bluff National Monument. In the cow town of Valentine, I stayed the night. I looked at the Niobrara River, I bought a pair of Wranglers on Main Street that I still wear and I met two locals, local Valentines, who caught my attention.

Here's my diary excerpts from May 2001:

A 77-yr-old man runs the Valentine Motel on Hwy 20, just east of Main St. Nice car out front, I mentioned. ‘Yes sir,’ deep clear voice. "That was my wife’s first car. ’53 Ford. I told her not to sell it, when she did, I went back to the dealer and bought it." Lots of dolls in the lobby, and 1960s/70s Neb postcards for sale: four for a dollar."Oh that’s not even a bit of them. There's dolls all over the house. Some say this is more of a museum than a motel. The collection goes back 200 years." His family has been in Nebraska for 53 years. Answered promptly, as if he expected.

Then I went for supper.

Forty-something waitress at Jordan’s Café sat down at my table, coffeepot in hand, when I asked about canoeing the Niobrara. She’s never seen a snake out there, "but I can’t stand them. If I see a water snake that big (gestures about her full reach, about five-foot-five) I’m out of the water."

Happy Valentine's Day Valentine.

Journal: Omaha Man, 2001

I'm in the long process of digitizing a couple dozen journals put together on Lonely Planet, and other, research trips over the past decade or so. I really liked this guy, met in Omaha on my first LP assignment: updating the Great Plains chapter of the USA guidebook in the spring of 2001:

William Reeves volunteers at Omaha's Great Plains Black History Museum. He's 74, originally from Kansas City. Says he played alto and tenor sax in the late '40s down there. Another musician he knew -- a 'bully' - once hit a heckler 'with his horn,' he said. 'Then someone beat him up so bad he died.' Asked if he liked jazz today. 'Oh, sure. You just have to be where it's at, y'know? Preston Love at the Omaha Star [a 'black paper' nearby], he played horn with Basie. He'd know.' Williams says he regularly goes back to Kansas City -- 'for barbecue runs, and for funerals.'

Random Photo of the Week: Enter Nebraska

For many people, Nebraska is one of those states in the way. Between cities and mountains, here and there. But when I first drove into Nebraska, it meant something. Growing up in Oklahoma, Nebraska was a fierce yet respected football rival. So crossing the Kansas-Nebraska line for the first time, I leaned forward in my car set -- itching to note, survey, savor all the differences that come from something as artificial as a random state boundary not based on geography.

Attention soon turned to something else: the massive midnight cloud moving in from the west.

I grew up in tornado alley, but the only time I've been scared was that drive into Nebraska. As hail started to fall sideways across the deserted highway, I kept moving forward. Should I stop out here? A radio DJ was yelling, 'This is not a test. We under a severe tornado warning. Get someplace safe.' I finally reached a small town, and pulled behind a small dental office and waited for the storm to pass wondering if Okies were really welcome or not.