Day 9 - More transit - but pretty mundane this day

Having spent our 2nd night in the central time zone, we awoke a little later today, apparently adapting somewhat to the time change. The hotel breakfast wasn't very much so we made quick work of it and were out on the road at 7:07 AM. It was 68 degrees at the hotel, but soon after getting onto the interstate it slipped a few more degrees cooler.

Today's route

We ran up I-29 for 126 miles until we got up onto I-80W. We stopped for something more substantial for breakfast and then continued on the interstate up through Omaha. From there we got onto US-275 which started out as four lane divided highway, but soon dropped to a two lane, undivided highway with a speed limit of 65. It was just about bone straight for the remaining 259 miles. The road surface varied from quite poor early on, with frequent one lane closures for bridge repairs, but gradually got better, and by the last 150 miles of so was quite good. There were towns of varying sizes about every 10 to 20 miles apart, often with drops in speed down to 35, or even 25 in the ones bigger than 1000 people. Some were posted with populations of less than 100 and those typically only dropped the speed limits to 50 or 55.

The weather stayed coolish, warming into the low 70's only by 11:00 AM or so. When we stopped for lunch and fuel in Norfolk, NE at 1:00 it had risen to 77 so we shed our liners, had lunch and fueled and were back on the road in about 30 minutes. As we headed west it began to cloud up, but the temps also started climbing. It was then that we realized we were gaining altitude as we climbed towards the high plain. I guess we had been distracted by the steady side winds that had developed and we'd been fighting since lunch time. Though steady and wearing, these winds were no where near as bad as my previous experiences out here in the west and I was quite grateful for that. By the time we got to our overnight destination - Valentine, NE - the temps had reached 83 degrees and it felt like every bit of that.

Scenery was primarily American Breadbasket - mostly corn and soy, but then turned more cattle country with some feedlots and grazing stock. Up into the high plain there was some very scenic green meadows surrounded by hills of dandelions. I almost stopped for a picture, but wanted to get into the hotel so I didn't.

Tomorrow, we hit another required road - US16 from Custer to Keystone, SD including Mt Rushmore. Yes, we WILL get  pictures :-)  We will also cross into the Mountain Time zone so we we will be 2 hours behind the east coast.

Stay tuned!

Stats for today: 433.6 miles in 6:58 moving time, 8:12 elapsed time.

Added GPS Track for the day: