Day 8

 

Lexington Nebraska to Kearney Nebraska

 

 

 

We slept in this morning!  It was so wonderful to keep hitting the snooze button on the alarm for a half hour until 7 am.  We got ready for the day, Vaughn went to wash the car and get it shined up for the parade.  At 10:30 we were sitting at the old walmart parking lot.  There we had parking assignments in order of the year of the car we were driving.  We were in number 52.  We talked to everyone, and took pictures of all of our friends and their cars.

 

 

 

 

"Rosie"

 

 

Then at about 11:00 we pulled out in follow the leader!  The Veterans of America Motorcycle Club escorted us out of Lexington, stopping traffic at all the intersections, and riding in front, in the middle and at the end.

 

 

 

 

We drove for 35 miles on the Lincoln Highway, through a couple of small towns, and into Kearney Nebraska, where we drove through the main street of town while coming from the other direction was the tour from the East.  Talk about wonderful. All the way down the street we were honking, and waving while there were thousands and thousands of people on the sidewalks waving to us.

 





 

 

 

 

This is the other GTO from the East tour, we had been in contact with the owners and planned to meet in Kearney

 

 

As we neared the parade route, we were told to stay behind the car in front of us by 3 car lengths so the announcer could tell about our car and announce our names and where we were from.  While waiting our turn, we were parked in front of this auto shop and saw this sign

 

 

Then we found ourselves driving down the parade route, and heard some from the crowd yell "YEAH UTAH" , it made us proud! 

 

 

 

 

We were told there was 100,000 spectators there.

 

 

There was also a fun car show there along with our cars.  Here are some pictures of the cars we liked best

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After spending the afternoon here, we headed to the Holiday Inn for the Post - Tour Party.

 

We were fed wonderful appetizers, and then we had some of the official tour directors speak.  Then we said our good-byes.  We made so many new friends, traded emails, phone numbers, and were sorry to see this fun time end.

 

We finally met up with John and Wendy O'Connor, who had the GTO from the east, and took some photos

 

 

 

 

 

We are headed out in the morning, headed East on the Lincoln Highway, but at a faster pace than we have been for the past week.  Stay tuned....we are only half  way to New York!

 



 

 

 



 

 

 

 



 



 

 

Day 7

 

Cheyenne Wyo to Lexington Nebraska

 

 

This morning we pulled out from the hotel at exactly 7:00 am.  First time we've been on time I think.  Our first stop was the historic high school in Pine Bluffs Wyoming.  In a lot of ways it reminded me of our good old NS.  The people who greeted us were so friendly and wanted to tell us all about it.  It seems it had been condemned and the local farmers fought hard to save it and restore it.  Here are some pictures of an awesome building.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the gymnasium

 

 

 

This is the ceiling in the gym

 

 

 

 

This is the stage in the theater room, but it reminded me

of the playroom in the old elementary school

 

 

We crossed the state line into Nebraska, and the Lincoln Highway led us through these tunnels under the railroad, they are the original tunnels during the building of the LH

 

 

 

Whoops, kind of blurry, I took this through the windshield

 



 

 

Just after we left the school, we were driving through the town and saw this wonderful little building

 

 

This was an old service station

 

Next we stopped at a car show and they had this cute little grill for grilling hamburgers and hot dogs.  They wanted us to stay and eat, but we were expected in Julesburg Colorado for lunch.

 

 

 

 

And I fell in love with this cute little Studebaker truck

 

 

 

Can you just see me driving this around Coalville?

 

 

Then as we were on our way to Julesburg, we came to a cross-roads where at the time the Lincoln Highway was being decided on where to be built, Denver really wanted it to come through their town, but it was not meant to be.  So originally there were two bill boards put up exactly where these signs were, each wanting you to go to their town.  The town, Big Springs had these exact signs made and they put them up just for us!  We all had to have pictures taken.

 

 

 

 

 

Also in this town was a neat hotel and we were able to go inside. It was really cute and they still rent out the rooms.

 

 

 

 

Close by this hotel, was a building that a local man told Vaughn that had been a meth lab.  The building is next door to the police station and it took about 9 months for them to catch the guy running the meth lab!

 

 

The meth lab building!

 



 There was also a piano repair shop that had about 10 player pianos in it being repaired.  Too bad he isn't a little closer, we could use him.

 

 





 

The piano repair shop

 

 

Our next stop was lunch at the Old Ford Garage in Julesburg, Colorado.  They had some neat things in this garage and the museum next door was very interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

After we left here, we went through several small towns, one of them being Ogallala, Nebraska.  They had asked us to come to a car show and watermelon bust!  This is a car we saw there.

 

 

It is none other than a 1967 Pontiac GTO. Imagine that.  It was beautiful and the guy who owned it felt bad for us when he heard our story. I felt bad for us too!

 

This is the historic Spruce Street Station - a 1922 Lincoln Highway Standard Oil Station.  It has been restored and is now a visitors center.  And yes, that is a real live woman in front in vintage attire!

 





 

 

Then we were off again to our last stop before dinner and our hotel for the evening.  We stopped at the Lincoln County Historical Museum in North Platte Nebraska.  This was a wonderful place, as they had several buildings you could go into.

 



 

This is a house, that was beautiful inside.  It was a "Sears and Roebuck House.  Never heard of that before.  It was beautifully furnished and even had stained glass windows.  And notice the screen door! It also had a beautiful side garden and a carriage house off to the right.

 

 

This was the church, and a friend we met on the tour, Anita Hicks, from Sparks Nevada went inside and played the organ. It was beautiful.

 

 



 

 

 

This was the school. It was very small.

 

 

 

We left for Lexington Nebraska where we ate dinner at Mac's Creek Winery. Yes they gave samples of wine, but we enjoyed a Sprite and Diet Coke, along with a barbecued beef sandwich and several salads.  Then it was off to the hotel and to do laundry!

 

Our day was a very busy one, and we travelled just over 300 miles in about 11 hours.  We even changed time zones and lost an hour. 

 

Tomorrow is a fun day. We will be in Kearney for a parade of all the cars from both east and west tours. You can even sleep in.....we don't leave til 10:30 !!!!!

 

 

 

 



 



 

 

 

 









 





 

 

Day 6

 

Rock Springs Wyo. to Cheyenne Wyo.

 

 

After leaving Rock Springs this morning, our first stop was in Medicine Bow, Wyo.  We were able to drive 104 miles on the freeway as the Lincoln Highway runs directly under the interstate and at times to the right hand side.  That totally made up for the 170 miles on the dirt road the other day!

 

We then took the main road through downtown Rawlins, and as we stopped at a stop sign, we turned left and lo and behold there was an Antique Store. And Vaughn STOPPED. And we got OUT. And we went INSIDE! And this is the treasure I'm bringing home with me!

 

 

 

 

Then the road took us through the town of Sinclair.  As we passed by a park there were some children standing on the side of the road waving at all the cars go by. Of course we had to stop and visit them.  This was a good place to stop because there were wonderful things to take pictures of.

 

 

 

 

 

This sign tells about the Inn in the following picture

 

 



 

 

 

We then traveled on to Medicine Bow where we had lunch at the Historic Virginian Hotel.  This is where the TV show "The Virginian" was filmed.  There were many things to see, and a wonderful home across the street that was a museum. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was a log home that they had a garage sale in

 

 

This was one of the rooms in the museum

 

 

 

After lunch and touring the town hotspots, we headed to our afternoon stops, The Ames Monument, which we found out that the Ames brothers were main people who financed getting the railroad coast to coast.  This monument was completed in 1882 at the cost of $65,000.00. 

 

 

 

 

Then we traveled to the Henry Joy monument.  He was the first Lincoln Highway Association President.

 

 Next we visited the Lincoln Monument which I might add is very impressive.

 

 

 

We were also honored to have the son of the man who designed this monument.  He talked to us and told the story of his dad, Robert Russin.

 

Then after checking in at our hotel, we went to the Historic Plains Hotel for dinner. And let me tell you it was the best dinner we have had on this tour.  We sat at linen covered tables, and was served by waiters.  And we ate on real glass plates!  All our other meals have been more of a picnic in the park type of meal. They were good, but this was fantastic.

 

After visiting for a while, we headed back to the hotel where Vaughn has gone to do laundry while I let you know where you went today.  Hope you had fun...we did.

 

Today we logged about 260 miles in about 10 hours.  Tomorrow is another early day, on the road by 7 am.  Sleep tight!









 

Day 5

Tooele Utah to Rock Springs Wyo.

 

 

Hello fellow travelers!  We left our hotel this morning kind of early so we could get to Salt Lake and pick up our new rental car and return the old one.  It was interesting to transfer all our stuff from one into another.  And I'm here to tell ya, I guess we are no longer in mourning!  Today when we picked up our car, it was WHITE!  I guess we are now in remembrance of the GTO.  Cool huh! We still have the pictures in the back window.  That way everyone on the tour can remember who we are. 

 

Once we traded cars, we hauled butt to Coalville.  It was really cool to drive down main street and see the red, white and blue balloons welcoming us into town.  Thank you Coalville!  We stopped at the post office to pick up our mail, pay bills, go find our grandkids, kiss and hug them, went to the house unloaded a few things, picked up a few other things, then we headed back on the road.  WOW what a morning!

 

Our first stop was in Evanston to have lunch at the Roundhouse.  That was so neat.  I had not even heard about it, but in case you're interested, go see it.  It is the place where they brought the train engines , and cars off the train tracks and into this "round" building to do repairs.  We even got to ride the turntable which goes around in a circle to put the dis-abled engine or car on the right track to go into the repair garage.  And of course, I forgot my camera in the car and was too lazy to go back to get it.  But I think I have a friend to get me the pictures!  If so, I'll post them.

 

They fed us a wonderful lunch and much to our surprise, when we were getting our food, we looked up and there was Margaret Moore Lester.  It was good to see her, and she was so surprised to see us.

 

 

After our tour of the Round House, we headed toward Fort Bridger.  And I guess we are slow learners, because we ended up going on the gravel roads!  Imagine doing that again after our day yesterday. 

 

When we arrived in Fort Bridger, they had just had a ground breaking ceremony for the placement of the LH bridge that was originally used.  Here is a picture that explains it all.

 

 

Wow, its kind of small, but if you click on the picture I think it enlarges it so you can read it.

Then we went to see some cabins that were used in the 1930's for the travelers.  They have been very well preserved. 

And for all of you who know how well I love the old "slamming" screen doors......

After we left Fort Bridger, we took the back road to Lyman, instead of the freeway which is actually the old Lincoln Highway.  When we got to the 4 way stop sign, my heart started beating faster and faster, I was within seconds of being to one of my favorite quilt shops.  Yup, Valley Quilt Shop, right down this street....

Vaughn said we didn't have time...WHAT???  No time, are you kidding me?  He was not kidding!

So sadly we took off down the road to Green River, then to Rock Springs to check into our hotel.

Our dinner tonight was on Franklin Street in Green River.  They had blocked off the street and had security there and fed us hamburgers and hot dogs, salad, and water.  They were great hosts, and glad they could do this for us.

We drove about 230 miles and took us about 10 hours including stops.

Our days are going fast and we'll soon be at our half-way point across the country.
We get to sleep in tomorrow, we don't leave til 8!  yeahhhhh