Random Jottings from the Road

May 20

Outside of spending a few minutes talking to a taciturn Canadian biker from Toronto to Denver, today was rather uneventful.   Even the golf tournament taking place at Wild Horse, Nebraska's top course located west of Gothenburg, lacked excitement.  No Tiger Woods lapsing into sex addiction, no John Daly and his Hooter's Express, and no patrons cross-checked by the admittedly fictional Happy Gilmore.
With no earth-shattering events as I passed Brady and landed in Maxwell, we will go with some b-sides, a few random thoughts about Nebraska I haven't been able to fit in elsewhere.

1. Cottonwood fluff is everywhere.  Pillow companies should consider the seed casings as a cheap replacement for their regular stuffing.  Dr. Colonel McGillicuddy suggests pollen sufferers could use the head rest as a cure designed to overcome their allergy by means of massive exposure.

2. We've talked about H2O in its many forms and uses recently, but I haven't mentioned the source of Nebraska drinking water.  The Ogallala Aquifer, a massive underground repository of Bobby Boucher's* favorite liquid, stretches from South Dakota south to Texas, quenching thirsts in seven states, including Nebraska.

3. I've just missed nearby Fort McPherson in recent days.  In my attempts to mimic the Fox News "fair and balanced" format, I've talked only so far of white men massacred by Native Americans.  Both sides committed atrocious acts, however, and few were worse than the killing of unarmed women and children at Wounded Knee in South Dakota.  Eleven of those dead are buried at the McPherson cemetery.

4.  Finally we have our nominee for biggest buffoon in Nebraska.  Residents of the state will be relieved to know he was from Washington DC.  Citizens of other states will be unsurprised.  I was discussing the rash of snake sightings in the area with the Pony Express station's curator and I suggested the warm winter had spared more of the animals than usual.  This moron chimes in, "I doubt it, they are cold-blooded." Granted I was a C science student but even I know cold-blooded means that snakes and other reptiles have no internal heating mechanism, unlike warm-blooded mammals and birds.  That's why we see them more in hot places like the Amazon and the Everglades and not in Canada and Antarctica where there would not be enough sun to heat their bodies.  This man would have Santa riding behind a sleigh driven by pythons.  Earning my nickname Quick Draw McGrawCandless I said none of these things, merely standing mouth agape as the buffoon smugly departed.

21 miles/2170 total miles

*Even if you didn't know my sex you could probably guess it after two Sandler references.