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Editorial
Travelers get ground-level view of our flyover state
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Nebraska is sometimes derided as a "flyover state" for politicians seeking votes from the major population centers on the coasts, but it hasn't always been that way.
Summertime brings reminders of earlier times when trappers, "49-ers," longhorn drovers and travelers on the Mormon and Oregon trails spent long days traversing our loess hills on the way to their final destination.
We're thankful some of our ancestors took time to look around and see the opportunity to make a home right here on the Plains.
Major state bicycle rides have already rolled through Southwest Nebraska and Northwest Kansas, and it's a rare week we don't hear of some other unconventional travelers coming through our area.
The National Pony Express Association, based in Pollock Pines, California, is re-enacting a ride from Sacramento, Calif., to St. Joseph, Mo., over the Pony Express National Historic Trail. Unfortunately, a rider has already lost his life this year, when Jerry Potter was thrown from his horse June 16 and killed.
A stop is planned in McCook on Friday.
A slightly more modern re-enactment plans a stop in McCook July 13 as a group of women motorcyclists re-enact the 1916 cross country motorcycle ride by Augusta and Adeline Van Buren.
They were the first women to cross the continental United States, each on her own motorcycle. They became the first women to reach the 14,115 summit of Pikes Peak on motorcycles.
Proceeds of the ride from Brooklyn, N.Y. on July 3 to San Francisco on July 23, will go to Final Salute Inc., a national women's veterans' organization providing temporary and permanent housing for more than half-a-million homeless female veterans in the U.S., and the Women's Coalition of Motorcyclists, an organization to provide funding for motorcycle train-the-trainer scholarships to help increase the number of femal motorcycle instructors.
And those are just a couple of examples. Bicyclists, horseback riders, runners and almost any mode of transportation you can imagine is used to draw attention and funding to various causes throughout the summer.
Let's be courteous to our traveling guests as we encounter them on the highways and welcoming when they stop in our town.