Still very hot in NW Nebraska, not as hot as yesterday where the temperature hit over 100 degrees, but still plenty warm in any case. I was up late last night because it was still 90 degrees at 9:00 p.m., so it was well after midnight before it dropped in to the low 80's and I stopped sweating. Once it cooled off however it made for some decent sleeping. There was some rain storms going on somewhere around me as I could see the lightning flashes reflecting off the clouds. But I could never figure out if the storms were south, north or west of me.
    Was up and out the door of the trailer around 10:00 this morning. First thing on my list of things to do was to go over to the Park Office and see if they would let me stay one more day longer than I had intended. Since the park campground was nearly empty, and has never been full, even on the weekends while I have been here, it was no problem to stay as long as I wanted to. Indeed, the ranger behind the desk gave me some information that may come in handy next year as I pass through. Turns out you can actually get a discount if you stay more than 15 days during certain times of the year, with a sliding scale that increases with the amount of time you sign up for. Of course you have to pay ahead of time, and there is no refund if you have to leave early, but that is no different than any other park I have stayed in. To bad I didn't know that this time around, I could of saved 15%-20% this summer alone. Oh well..... next year.
     Also stopped in at the building where you can do arts and crafts and check out fishing poles, archery equipment and tennis rackets. My aim there was to pick up a new shot glass from the park. They had some that are hand etched by one of their seasonal workers. It just says Chadron State Park, and isn't at all well done. But it is hand made, and it didn't come from China, so that is one good point anyway.
    Drove on down to the town of Alliance after that. The Carnegie Art Museum was open today and that was a nice way to spend an hour. All of the art is supplied by local artists, and nearly all of it is for sale, so in that respect it is actually more like a very nice art gallery. They had 3 featured artists this quarter and all of them were very good. Lots of scenery paintings but also some featuring Native American themes and some featuring wildlife. I didn't see anything I couldn't live without, but there was a lot of very nice stuff. There are also other items on display from other artists in the area and all of that is for sale. They have some very nice blown glass items that are quite reasonably priced. If someone was in need of a vase or glass bowl I would highly recommend that place to look for them.
    Also spent some time walking around some of the area in and around the old downtown section. They have some wonderful old bungalow style houses in the area, some that are rather run down and some that look like they were built yesterday. One really interesting thing I noticed in an old brick building on a corner of the old main street was a series of old stain glass windows high up at the top of the outside walls. They were about 3' tall and more than 20' long and one had the word 'GARAGE' in big opaque white glass right in the middle of one of them. I could only think how neat it was to still have that wonderful piece of history in place. The building is no longer a garage of course, in fact it is cardio work out place now..... they have a nice "neon" sign to call attention to themselves.... it's just not the same somehow.
     Headed back to camp after this, but want to work on a few pictures before I leave the nice air conditioning here. Not much else that has to be done otherwise. Tomorrow I have a ticket to go see the play 'Sound of Music' one last time out at the Post Playhouse. Have been wanting to see that play once more since the night I first saw it. Yesterday I just decided to see if there was a ticket available, and since there was one, I bought it. Would also like to go out to Fort Rob a little early in order to go through the several museums out there that I still haven't seen yet. In the meantime, there are still more than a dozen books loaded on the Kindle so I'm pretty happy and content to just hag out.


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