The one thing I noticed about the ride from Omaha to McCook, Nebraska was that the corn got shorter and the hills got higher. While it was not an unpleasant ride, it wasn’t the most exciting either. Zandra tried to make it more interesting with a detour through the sand dunes – alas, in July apparently, the sand dunes are covered in grass and don’t look so sand-duney.
We did stay at a funky motel in McCook. It had once been a regular motel with rooms on 2 floors in a U shape with an outdoor pool in the middle. Not sure when they transformed it by building a roof and siding over the entire area. The now indoor pool was a welcome relief after a long, hot day of riding.
As I was not enamoured with riding through Nebraska and we were headed to Colorado Springs for 3 – count them – 3 – glorious nights in the same hotel, I asked Zandra to navigate the quickest and easiest route out of Nebraska.
The first hour of the ride was not unlike the last hour of the day before but there were some daunting looking storm clouds to the west.
After another half hour of doing our best storm racing – not chasing – we were finally defeated as we rolled into the tiny town of Haigler (pop. 220 – I asked). Not surprisingly, on the main street (ok, the only street) we came upon the Haigler Country Cafe.
As we had just crossed into Mountain time we gained an hour so it was roughly 8:30 AM Haigler time.
We walked into the small cafe in our leather and neon yellow rain gear – helmets in hand. 5 women bikers seeking refuge from the storm. We got a hearty welcome from Barb, the owner and waitress Stephanie. The 7 gentleman sitting around the closest table were clearly as surprised to see us as we were to see them.
Zandra quickly went into action declaring that these were the first official cowboys she had ever met and asked if she could take their picture. They were happy to oblige and commented that this was great for them because they had run out of stories years ago and needed some new ones.
Turns out these were real Haigler cowboys who came to the cafe for coffee every morning. No one gave away exactly how long this ritual had gone on but I’d guess many, many decades. They even had their own coffee cup rack.
They asked us questions about our ride and we asked them questions about being cowboys. I asked the oldest looking gentleman (guessing late 80’s) if he had lived in Haigler all his life. His answer – “so far”.
As they were finishing up their coffee and getting ready to leave one of them asked to take our picture because otherwise “no one would believe them”.
After hearty “goodbyes” and “ride safes” the gentlemen all left to get on with their day. In the meantime, Barb had been checking the weather radar and told us to sit back down and they’d feed us pie because it was really bad out there. How could we refuse such kindness (and pie)?
This gave us a great opportunity to look around the cafe. It was like a museum. Old photos and newspaper clippings from the late 1800’s.
And photos of some of the very same cowboys we had just chatted with as young men.
There were even two very fine drawings of John Wayne.
Here’s Deputy Z posing with the badge she picked up at John Wayne’s birthplace and museum the day before in Winterset, Iowa.
As the weather cleared and we needed to continue west we said our goodbyes to Barb and Stephanie and headed towards Kansas. (With a fresh cinnamon bun in tow for me.)
So much for a quick exit out of Nebraska. Turns out Haigler (pop. 220) really was a silver lining under those storm clouds.
Whatever you ride – ride safe.
Helen
The Almost 200 Gang 