Dear Nebraska, We Need to Talk…

Dear Nebraska,

We need to talk.  This relationship isn’t working. I think we’ve both known for some time that we’re not right for each other, but I’m only just now finding the courage to tell you the truth to your face.

I remember the first time we met—the first time I can remember, anyway. I was in my early twenties, a recent college graduate just starting to make her way in the world. Driving from my parents’ house in Wisconsin, I was heading toward Leadville, Colorado, to test my mettle on a 2½-month Colorado Outward Bound outdoor course, after which I would begin a new life in the Mountain West.  I had driven for hours and was seriously in need of rest. The mental fade had begun in Omaha, but with Lincoln only 60 miles down the road, I decided to push on, buoyed by the idea of one less hour of driving the following day. But when I arrived at your capital city, there was literally no room at the inn(s). The Nebraska State Fair was in full swing, it turned out, and after stopping at hotel after hotel (these being the days before cell phones) and being told no vacancy, I started to panic. Finally, I found a hotel with one available room, a honeymoon suite I could ill afford but took anyway in soporific desperation.

The next day, poorer but wiser, I continued getting to know you and your open expanses as I sped on down the road toward the mountains beyond your border. Flush with youthful excitement on my first solo cross-country road trip and tapping the steering wheel to songs of inspiration and optimism, I could find no fault with you, me, or the world.

Since that first rendezvous, though, things have gone south. In meet-up after meet-up, you present the same dull personality, the same tedious landscape. You’re flat and insipid. You’re longwinded. You’re wearisome and repetitious.

In short, you’re a bore.

Before our most recent encounter, however, I thought things might be changing for the better. I harbored real hope that this relationship could be salvaged. Word reached me that there was a part of you that was different, exciting, flashy even. Your northwest corner was unlike your central corridor, I was told.  It had curves, hills, relief.  I was sure Scotts Bluff National Monument would be the answer to our problems.

I was wrong.

If only you could sustain this

Compared to what you’re usually like, the approach to your anomaly was tantalizing.

But you know better than anyone what we had to endure to get there—

The epitome . . .

. . . of monotony.

—hours and hours on your flatter-than-a-discarded-Visit-Nebraska!-tourist-pamphlet, egregiously mischaracterized “scenic” highway.

Yes, Scotts Bluff is nice. Striking even.

Only 3000 acres of this, after which you revert to type.

But did you see the word I used back there? Anomaly. Your one decent natural feature is singular departure from your true self. An exception, a deviation, an aberration.

But wait, I just know you’re pleading, beseechingly, what about my gloriously quirky Carhenge?

Do you seriously want to go there? Really? Fine.

Yes, Carhenge is all it was cracked up to be. Unique, off-the-wall, and just plain fun. Kudos to you.

Inspired

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And it was an enjoyable visit.

All 20 minutes of it.

Sundara Spa and Sedona be damned. This is your one stop shop for energy healing and chakra rejuvenation . . .

. . . and t-shirts

But even if we overlook the fact that between Scotts Bluff and Carhenge, and indeed throughout your interminable 77,000 square miles, there is nothing but this . . .

And you’re the home of Arbor Day? You know arbor means tree, right?

. . . it’s just not enough. I need more.

And let’s face it, you don’t have more to give.

But while I’d give anything to say an irrevocable goodbye and walk away for good, I know that won’t happen.  I can never truly quit you the way I want to.  You stand inexorably between me and my true love, Colorado, and as such—and though it vexes me to say so—we will run into each other from time to time, whether we want to or not. So let’s agree to be civil—I will if you will—and instead of good riddance, I’ll say, resignedly, see ya around.

—The Travel Architect