We're Heading North to Canada!

After spending good quality time with friends and family this spring, it is time to hit the road! Our destination for this summer is Canada, so we are heading north and west at a faster pace than is usual for us. We have reservations in Banff and Jasper National Parks in less than a month, so we are going to be traveling at break neck speeds (when compared to our usual poky speed). So we left Lenexa, Kansas, early in the morning and picked up our motor home at Mark's cousins' house. They offered to share their cherry tree's harvest, so we were very excited to take fresh cherries on the road with us!

We crossed another state line, as we headed north into Nebraska. Their welcoming sign proclaims that this is the home of the good life, as well as Arbor Day.

We're purposefully staying west, away from the flooding of the Missouri River. Interstate 29 is closed because of all the water, causing two-lane Highway 75 to be crowded from an unusual amount of truck traffic. We met long lines of cars and trucks because the increased traffic meant no one could pass.

We have definitely left the rolling hills and entered the flat farm-land plains of eastern Nebraska.

We normally drive 1-2 hours between stops. But we have mapped out our route to Canada and that pace isn't going to work this summer. So our first drive was almost four hours, before we pulled into our campground in Lincoln, Nebraska, at the Lancaster Event Center. After setting up in the parking-lot-like campground, we walked around the huge barns of this event center. It looks like most of the events hosted here involve animals. We wondered why the crews were working in the evening to clean out all these empty  stalls.

That's because they knew that 800 quarter horses would begin arriving the next day. With the arrival of all those beautiful animals, those barren stalls would suddenly become fashionable homes for well-cared-for horses.

We have never seen such a dramatic transformation as our lonely campground turned into a mecca of horse activity.

After their long trailer rides, these beauties are treated to trips to the beauty shop and showers in these horse barns with top-notch facilities. We found that they are enlarging everything from barns to arenas to campgrounds here at the Lancaster Event Center in preparation for Summer 2020. That's when they will host the biggest rodeo in the world--the National High School Finals Rodeo here at the event center.

But this weekend, 800 of the finest quarter horses in the country are in Lincoln, Nebraska in hopes of winning the trophies and ribbons displayed in the cases in one of the barns.

This is the Cornhusker Classic, and we see horse trailers with license plates from all over the country delivering their precious cargo to the show. This parking lot was empty when we arrived, and the next morning it was packed.

Likewise, our sleepy campground with ten RVs the first night, was full by the second night. We are guessing that we have some wealthy horse-loving neighbors, as we are seeing more million-dollar motor homes in this campground than anywhere in our travels.

Likewise, many of the horse trailers include living quarters with slideouts. Coupled with that four door truck, we're guessing this is a very expensive rig as well.

We're sad that the horse show won't actually start until after we will be leaving Lincoln. But for now, it was great fun to watch the preparations for the show. We settled into our home, making a cherry cream pie using those cherries we picked the day before. Thanks Craig and Leta! It's fun to be wandering again, finding interesting stops on our way to Canada this summer.