DAY 22 - Exploring Kearney, NE

We slept in today!  First time in months! We needed the rest!  Just 13 hours from home now...

Today we decided to explore Kearney.  Our first stop was the Archway Monument.  

This first pic is for all my quilter friends!

What a FANTASTIC place! 

This archway cover I80.  You literally drive underneath it...Oh, and by the way, there is a radar detector monitors your speed as you do!  

It was truly a step back in time to the pioneering days. 

Before I80 and Route 30 existed!  It is lifelike.  You can feel yourself right there with the people of that time.  And the experience goes on bringing in the Tin Lizzy, drive-in theaters, fiberoptics and a cafe you might have found back in the day.  It is a place we would definitely visit again. 

Enter the automobile...and roads that now span coast to coast...

So many more conveniences...But is life any easier?

What a lovely little town.  The downtown is what you might expect a downtown area should be.  No tourist trap stores, just shops, restaurants, pubs, and lots of salons, even a music store...remember those!  They fix instruments and give lessons.  Some fitness places, clothing, a mercantile, and some others.  All the things you would want in a town if you were planning to relocate.  We stopped halfway through at Cunningham's   The food was good.  

Then we found a couple of thrift stores...Yep we got some bargains!  Rick comments that we hadn't seen any souvenir stores...But then...on the way to our hotel, yes, tonight is a hotel night.  Rick likes to take a break for the RV every 3 or so nights.  But on the way, he spotted a huge sign for a souvenir store, Stagecoach.  So, in we went.  Well, all we saved in the early part of the trip went right out the window.  What beautiful things they had.  Not junk like so many but absolutely gorgeous items!

And remember from the earlier blog with all the murals?  Here is one we missed!

Now we are in for the night and begin the last leg of our journey home tomorrow.