Sitting here patching a hole in the back pocket of a pair of my favorite shorts, seems that my wallet puts to much strain on the material. It isn't because there is an over abundance of money in it, that's for sure. Still; it brings up another one of those problems that occur while travelling like this. I guess some would simply look at the tear and throw the shorts out, I do that with socks and underwear these days, but these are really comfortable shorts. So I sit here at midnight trying to thread my needle with eyes that no longer want to focus at that distance. It can be done.... just takes a little patience.

    It was a good day for a road trip. Off late this morning headed north and east to see what there was to see in the town of Hays Center. Not a whole lot to see there actually, a sleepy little farming/ranching community that time either forgot or just decided to pass by. Cute little houses baking in the July heat and empty store fronts along the two blocks that use to make up the 'downtown' area. The town is still alive, but just barely.

    South to the town of Alliance, a bigger town by far... maybe even a city by Nebraska standards. Still lots of commerce going on in this town, somewhat anchored by the BNSF (Burlington Northern - Santa Fe) railroad yards and shops. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of tons of coal pass through here everyday coming from the coal mines in NE Wyoming and headed to coal fired electrical plants east and south of here. It's fascinating to sit and watch 3-6 of these huge 6,000+ HP road engines latch on to a 140-200 car unit train and slowly come up to speed as it passes the yard limit signs. Once moving it can take up to 4 miles to slow one down and stop it, slightly less in an emergency, but you don't want to be the one sitting on the tracks checking it out when that happens.

   Spent some time wandering around this down town area also. A little more going on here, Walmart has moved into town of course, but there are still a few specialty stores that haven't had to close yet. A nice old movie theatre, and across the street, the old post office and court house buildings. Outside of town some eccentric farmer has erected 'Car Henge', his monument to Stone Henge, but not as nice. Visited that a couple years ago, so there was no need to check it out again. I would imagine you can find it on the web if you want to take a look.

    Back north and into the town of Crawford for a quick bite to eat before going on to the theatre out at the 'Post Playhouse' at Fort Robinson State Park. Tonight's show was 'Grease', one of my all time favorites. This version was a little bit different from others that I have seen. There were a few songs that were new to me and a couple scenes that I had expected that had been left out. It was all good though, the two leads, Danny and Sandy, were very believable in their roles, maybe not as good as John Travolta and Olivia Newton John had been, but cute and both with great voices. The only major role that wasn't perfect was the character 'Rizzo', she was good enough, and had a fine voice, she just didn't have the same charisma going with her love interest that the two leads had. In the end though it was lots of fun, good music and dancing and the girl playing Sandy looked even better than Olivia in black stretch pants and tight top, red in this case.

    Tomorrow there will be lunch with one of my nephews and his family. Will finally get to meet my newest grand nephew, Rykin and see Aubree one of my favorite, (am I allowed to say that), grand nieces. Some more exploring to do and another play tomorrow night. Need to remember to shut the roof vents tomorrow morning before leaving for the day. Didn't do that today and it rained pretty hard here this evening before I got home. Only got a little bit wet inside, but could of been much worse based on the lighting I was seeing in the sky to the east of here while driving home. Had to stop and watch the lighting show for about 20 minutes on a hill south of town with a good view. It was spectacular.