African friends

Gayle Hileman (left) of McCook pauses with two South African friends during a stop in McCook on Monday. John and Gail Alldrick live in Umhlanga Rocks, 20 miles north of Durban on the Indian Ocean in South Africa. John, who owns a precision scale business, and Gail, a registered nurse, said they have been impressed with American hospitality, the appearance of towns like McCook and the "idyllic way of life." They noted that South Africa is about the same size as Texas, about the same age as the United States, but has only 2 million people of European descent out of a population of 34 million.