It was 31 degrees when we got up this morning. One of the things to repair on this RV is the JATO unit. JATO is a military term for Jet Assisted Take-Off. I used it to refer to the diesel heater booster that’s supposed to give us nearly instant heat on a cold morning when the engine is started. Could have used it this morning. Other than that (and a pesky little tie-rod failure early in the trip), this trip has been relatively trouble-free.
Another long day of driving, entirely on I-80, most of it in Nebraska. We did take a break, however, from the monotonous Nebraska landscape. We’ve driven by this location several times, never having time to stop. On one of those trips, we even took a picture by the sign. This time, in sheer desperation for something other than I-80, we took the exit towards the town of Friend, Nebraska.
This town is twelve miles south of the interstate, so it will add at least a half-hour to our driving, but we were beyond caring at this point.
And Friend didn’t disappoint. Deb wanted a postcard so we stopped at the pharmacy in town. The people there, once we learned why we were there, were super Friend-ly and we soon had a post card in hand. I also spotted an honest-to-goodness local newspaper, the Friend Sentinel, and we had to buy a couple copies of that also. When was the last time you saw an actual newspaper?
One of the guys there grabbed a hat off the bargain table, which had the logo of the local high school sports team, the Friend Bulldogs. They wanted to give it to me, but I insisted on buying it. They also offered us cookies, hot dogs, and free drinks. We felt like celebrities.
Deb wrote out the postcard to grandson, Alex, and we took it to the local post office and had it hand-stamped.
We drove around and took some pictures of a few named things in town. One thing I thought was cool was a huge neon sign forming the name, Friend. It stands right in front of the old train Depot. The city web site has a picture of it lit up with the sunset behind it:
Some pictures of the town of Friend, Nebraska:
We were just going to head out of town when we saw the local thrift store. Why not? We’ve already lost quite a bit of time.
We went in and asked if they had any Friend swag. We hit pay dirt here as we walked away with three jackets, a shirt, and a visor. We cleaned them out of Friend swag. When I wear these back home, I will probably confuse a lot of people. The bulldog mascot is identical to the image used by the Grandville High School.
What’s ironic is that the high school is combining with two other high schools next year, and the bulldog logo will go away. So these will become priceless antiques.
We also had lunch in the city park. We lost a good hour and a half, but it was well worth the diversion. We’ll have to come back and explore some more. We missed the tour of the local machine shop that was going on today, and the historical society building would be interesting. And it would be fun to get more pictures with the name in it. And to see the neon lit up at night.
Back on I-80 we made it all the way to just east of Des Moines, Iowa before stopping for the night. Deb passed the time by reading the newspaper.
545 miles traveled today, including the diversion into Friend, Nebraska.
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