After 4 1/2 action packed filled days in South Dakota we had to say goodbye to Narnia and start the journey home on Thursday, August 11, 2016. I have to say I wasn't really looking forward to the ride home as much because when you turn back towards home there's a finality in the vacation coming to an end. But with Cari's help, I adjusted my mindset to focus on the fact that the ride home was another part of the adventure. And indeed it was.
The route took us from South Dakota, south down through Nebraska and west through Colorado to hit our destination for the night in Golden, Colorado. It's interesting to see what each state's landscape has to offer. Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska all provided infinite views of grasslands, hay fields and pastures with heards of cattle. Nebraska also added in quite a few corn fields and trains into the mix. But the thing that Nebraska had that the other states didn't was an AWESOME place called Carhenge. And we just happened upon it.
As we were riding through Nebraska I noticed a couple of signs that referenced Carhenge, but didn't really think much about it. Until we were riding through a small town and I saw a sign saying it was only 4 miles away! I quickly pulled out my cell phone to google it to see what it was all about. I learned that Carhenge is a replica of England's famous Stonehenge, but with cars!? How rad is that? (By the way, I'm on a mission to bring back the word rad.)
I was super excited to see Carhenge and I pretty aggressively tapped Mike on the shoulder, pointing out the sign and saying we should stop and see that. Because how can you not stop at something called Carhenge?
The funny thing was I was so jazzed about this unique, unplanned stop, that I totally missed Mike saying we were stopping in this town for lunch (where we could work out the details of this fun detour). And I proceeded to google the directions to Carhenge and was urgently shouting to Mike (shouting is how you communicate when riding a motorcycle) that he needed to turn left just ahead on Highway 87 in 2.4 miles. And he kept saying, okay, okay, as he was trying to spot a decent place for us to eat and me still not realizing we were stopping for food. This is the beauty of trying to communicate on a motorcycle! It then became a joke and I would randomly say to the group, "Hey, can we go to Carhenge???", about every 7 minutes between the time we stopped for lunch and actually arriving at this amazing place.
Hey, can we go to Carhenge???
Located in a small town called Alliance, Carhenge is a fun, bizarre attraction in the middle of Nebraska's corn fields. Carhenge is free to visit and is quite a unique site to see. So next time you are cruising through Alliance, Nebraska...put Carhenge on your itinerary. It's so worth it! We spent maybe 30 minutes there but it was one of my top sights of the trip! It was just so random and different that it ranked high on my list.
On the outskirts of Carhenge was some other interesting car art...
Here's some close up shots of Carhenge...
The other cool thing about Carhenge was that it was right next to a huge field of sunflowers. If you look close at the photo below you can see the sunflower field behind Carhenge on the left side.
I had seen a couple of random sunflower fields earlier in the day, but never had my camera out in time take a picture as we were riding by. But this was way better, because Cari and I actually walked right into the sunflower field since it wasn't fenced off. It was pretty neat to stand in field of flowers nearly as tall as you. Certainly a first for me. My only complaint was the flowers were all facing the wrong way. ;)
Hey, can we go to Carhenge???
This is what I love most about road trips...seeing something random and having the flexibility to make a detour and check it out. Carhenge was as cool as it sounded in my head and definitely a trip highlight!
Hey, can we go to Carhenge??? YES! YES! YES!
Tomorrow we head to the Coor's Brewery, which was cool...but not as cool as....you guessed it, Carhenge! ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment