Tourist Attractions

Sometimes I like driving by myself. It's a chance to be thoughtful and quiet, a chance for my mind to shake off the dust of everyday affairs and feed on higher things.

That's where I was yesterday when I passed this sign.

Kinda sad, isn't it? But what did you expect? I mean, after all, this is Nebraska.

It's not that we don't have any tourist attractions. There's Chimney Rock--home of the state's earliest graffiti--where Oregon Trail travelers carved messages for those yet to come into its soft clay and sandstone. Many weary travelers plodding across half a continent rejoiced when they spied Chimney Rock; travelers hungry for a sign of progress or a message from those who had gone before.

And, speaking of the Oregon Trail, there's a rest stop on I-80 where you can go and see some of the ruts--actual ruts--left by wagon wheels of those early sojourners. Men and women and children who left homes and loved ones and familiarity to walk seventeen miles a day for six months into the unknown. They gave birth and buried children in lonely places, sustained through hardship by hope, prayer, and grit.

Some tourist attractions are more powerful the more you think about them.

Not only that, but we also have Carhenge.

Some tourist attractions are not more powerful the more you think about them.

Maybe the state Tourism Board felt kinda funny putting a rock, ruts, and junk cars up on the sign, but they shouldn't have. Nebraska is an understated kind of place, and most of the Nebraskans I know are comfortable with that.

Except when the Huskers play.

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