In anticipation of my Nebraska travel destinations book coming out next summer, my husband (and really my parents who also helped with the kids) blessed me with a four day trip around Nebraska.  By myself. 🙂  Covering 1,700 miles over the course of four days was a bit exhausting, especially since I walked between 12,000 -17,000 steps every day as well.  Yet I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to see so many different places that I had been dreaming about visiting.  (Yes, this girl had a rather long Nebraska bucket list).  This experience will definitely add authenticity to my book.  Here are five observations that I made while traveling around the “Good Life” state.

  1. Nebraskans truly are nice.  There was a bit of flack given to the Nebraska Tourism board about the “Visit Nebraska, Visit Nice” slogan.  Yet I can verify by own personal experiences, that this description fits Nebraskans.  (Not that we do not have our crabby moments …) Yet as I traveled around Nebraska, I encountered person after person who was willing to go out of his/her way to help me with my project of capturing Nebraska.
  2. Nebraska has a proud heritage to maintain.  Although my book will be more about the places, the people who maintain these locations are proud of their stories. For good reason.   They are the ones keeping the history of Nebraska alive, and the ones who are keeping the sites going.  Local historians are wonderful!
  3. Nebraska provides plenty of possibilities to get away from it all.  During this trip, many times I would travel for miles without seeing another soul.  And this was on roads labeled highways.  Besides just the traveling part, I stopped at several Nebraska State Parks that had very few people utilizing them.  Beautiful places!  To have a great getaway, check out all of the possibilities linked at the bottom of the post.
  4. Nebraska's Flat Farm LandNebraska is a land of contrasts.  Although we do have some flat areas, most of Nebraska is comprised of other types of landscape: bluffs, rolling hills, creeks, rivers, lakes and even a few forests.   Throughout the state, all sorts of views could be seen through my minivan window.Many different Nebraska Views
  5. Nebraska is a place that I am proud to call home.  One of the songs that is played frequently at Nebraska Cornhusker football games is “There is No Place Like Nebraska.”  While I am not sure that the boys are the squarest and the girls are the fairest is still a true statement, I do think the meaning behind the song is still just as true today.  The more places that I visited, the more convinced I was that my state is great place to visit and an even better place to live.  Go, Huskers! 🙂

P.S. While most of my favorite pictures will be saved for the book, I did take some snapshots of the #Nebraskapassport places, and I will be sharing them on my @NebraskaOdyssey Instagram feed over the next week or two.

http://outdoornebraska.gov/parks/

Author: neodyssey

My name is Gretchen Garrison. I started this blog about Nebraska in 2013. So far, I have written three books about Nebraska and Lincoln.