{"id":290,"date":"2008-08-02T20:22:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-03T00:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=290"},"modified":"2009-01-14T17:40:59","modified_gmt":"2009-01-14T21:40:59","slug":"becalmed-innebraska","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=290","title":{"rendered":"Becalmed in&#8230;Nebraska"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It really is Nebraska. It just feels like Hell. As we pulled into               North Platte about an hour ago, the 4Runner&apos;s outside thermometer               read 108\u00b0. And outside, well, we&apos;re reminded of a mild summer&apos;s               day in Scottsdale, except with three times the humidity. In short,               uggh.<\/p>\n<p>We&apos;re on our way back to Colorado Springs from almost five weeks               in Chicago. We got our new niece Juliana baptized and almost everything               else on our substantial do-it list done, but it took more time and               energy than we thought.<\/p>\n<p>Just like, well, always.<\/p>\n<p>We spent last night in Newton, Iowa, the former home of Maytag,               back when there still was a Maytag. The hotel we stayed in was awful               enough that I will issue an all-points avoidance notice: Whatever               else you may do to abuse your body, mind, or soul, <i>do not stay               at the Newton, Iowa Holiday Inn Express<\/i> on 4th Street. Unless,               of course, you wish to confront:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mold growing on the walls. Not the bathroom walls, either. The                 walls in the main room.<\/li>\n<li>A hole in the ceiling. It was too dark to see where it went,                 but it was about 1 1\/2&#8243; in diameter and looked like it had                 been poked with a piece of pipe. (This makes you wonder what the                 ceiling was made out of.)<\/li>\n<li>Wireless Internet that did not work, would not connect, and                 kept giving me weird error messages. At least it was free.<\/li>\n<li>Carpeting that smelled like dead fish or ocean bilge. Or both.<\/li>\n<li>Stale Raisin Bran at the breakfast bar.<\/li>\n<li>Coffee (again, at the breakfast bar) so bad I couldn&apos;t force                 a second cup down.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.duntemann.com\/100_2310.JPG\" align=\"left\" height=\"164\" hspace=\"5\" width=\"200\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;\">You&apos;ve               been warned. <\/p>\n<p>Now, we like Nebraska and have been here a lot. However, there               is a local weirdness I&apos;m seeing that I don&apos;t entirely understand:               Mid-grade gas is cheaper than regular. Gas is generally a bargain               here, especially compared to Illinois. Why Plus should be 15c a               gallon cheaper than the low-octane mix remains a puzzle.<\/p>\n<p>We&apos;re going to stop at Lake McConaughy tomorrow morning (it&apos;s about               fifty miles west along I-80) but if the heat remains as bad as it               was today, we may dunk and run the final 275 miles to the Springs               rather than spend the day. There&apos;s no shade there, and at some point               I just can&apos;t deal with long periods in that kind of heat, lake or               no lake. We won&apos;t know until we get there. I&apos;ll keep you posted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It really is Nebraska. It just feels like Hell. As we pulled into North Platte about an hour ago, the 4Runner&apos;s outside thermometer read 108\u00b0. And outside, well, we&apos;re reminded of a mild summer&apos;s day in Scottsdale, except with three times the humidity. In short, uggh. We&apos;re on our way back to Colorado Springs from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travelogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions\/304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}