7 Minute Miles

State Number 39 – Nebraska


Last week, I had the opportunity to visit a state for the first time (which hasn’t happened in a long time). A project for 318 took me to a client in north-central Nebraska, which turned out to look a lot like southeast Minnesota. The towns we stayed in all had populations under 3500 people and all the people we met were very friendly.

In hindsight, it probably would have been quicker to drive, but we flew Air Tran to Omaha (via Milwaukee) and drove about three and a half hours from there. Lodging for this trip was the Super 8 in O’Neill and our Mazda 3 came from Enterprise. Not a perfect travel experience, but nothing too awful either. Side note: Budget at OMA rents all three current MINI models.

You know you are in a remote area of the country when the nearest Walmart is almost two hours away. AT&T’s cell coverage was surprising good, though, and it seemed like every restaurant had free wi-fi. We ate at all the local spots in O’Neill and Atkinston and I sampled the Nebraska beef more than once.

With Nebraska off the list, I’m down to 11 states left to visit. A drive from Minnesota to the Gulf Coast (via Kansas City) would cross off half of them, but I’m not sure when (or if) I’ll try that. Might be fun, though…

Originally published by DK on March 6, 2010 at 8:10 pm in Food, Longform, Travel, Work


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