mile 5437-5956.6

Getting down to the wire, here.  I guess it's a good time to get honest about the URL, has it really been thirty days?  I guess, more like: 32, considering we finish on Monday, Labor Day.  It's Sunday evening and we made it from Fort Collins to Lincoln, NE without a lot of difficulty, except that once again we got off to a late start ( I was battling some stomach thing last night and was exhausted this morning). It's always very bittersweet to leave the quiet beauty of Fort Collins, because we are usually headed for lower lands, less sun, more traffic, more people, more, well, of a lot of things.  But it's good to be finally shoving off for home.  Time to be together as a family again.  We drove through a corner of Wyoming, and spent most of the day driving across Nebraska.  Nebraska was sort of like the first twenty miles of a marathon in an ironman. It's slow going, and after all I've already done, I can't believe I'm faced with such a journey.  I'd have to say that the most visually stunning sight on this stretch has to be the sky:

We were in rapid motion, and didn't stop for at least three hours. When we pulled into a rest area in Nebraska, it was hot, humid, Not at Altitude, and, well, I could tell we were finally coming home.  In fact, as I got back behind the wheel, there he was, the first IL license plate I've seen in 28 days:

I've spotted another creature from my planet.

So, yes, the trip is beginning to wear on me and I'm not so sure I love what I see.  Nebraska is tough. It delivers a lot of the uncomfortable truths about America, in combination with the sort of weather that makes plainsfolk humble and strong.  When we landed at a gas station after we had crossed over the central time zone I knew we were in the Midwest, plain and simple.  We suddenly weren't the only minivan on the road, for one thing.  But we took an extra few minutes to savor this scenery: