And the rest is huskory: Looking out the window at the great state of Nebraska

I've visited 46 of the US states and can honestly say it's been a thrill to see every one. One place in particular, not normally known as a vacation destination, is the great state of Nebraska. If you're traveling by car from the east coast to the west, you know you're a long, long way from home when you get to Nebraska, and you've still got a long, long way to go. We took one of our all-time best detours when we drove a couple hours northwest off of Interstate 80 to the small town of Alliance to see Carhenge, the replica of Stonehenge made out of old cars. Well worth the trip, and the getting there really was fun. Who knew Nebraska was full of such pretty sandhills, plains with those cliche windmilly things and lonesome, melancholy small towns? People from Nebraska, I imagine, but its beauty was quite a revelation to us native New Englanders. Maybe Nebraska should be a vacation destination after all, dad gummit. Here are a few shots of our travels through the Cornhusker State, some shot from the highway, some when we got out to stretch our legs a bit. How can you not love a state whose state beverage is milk, state dance is the square dance, and state song is "Beautiful Nebraska"? Long may your goldenrod bloom, Western meadowlark sing and White-tailed deer roam.

Incredi-Bill: North Platte, Nebraska's Fort Cody Trading Post

Nothing warms the heart of a bored cross-country roadtrip passenger than a good, old-fashioned politically incorrect tourist trap. Such is the case of the Fort Cody Trading Post, just off Interstate 80 in North Platte, Nebraska. North Platte has a genuine claim to fame, as it was the 1880s home of William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody. Not exactly the stay home and collect stamps-type, he got his nickname for killing 4,280 buffalo in an 8-month period during 1867-68. There are lots of good reasons to stop and stretch your legs here: the "fort" is actually a western museum/wild-west-show-in-miniature/kitschy gift shop all housed in a mock stockade (mockade?) complete with soldier mannequins (one with an arrow tastefully stuck in his butt) and a corral out back that is home to a...drumroll, please...Muffler Man Indian! The western museum displays many authentic items, including chaps, guns, boots, spurs, stuffed animals, and some statues of Bill and various Indians. The piece de resistance, though, is a stuffed two-headed calf. The miniature west show is an accurate, if not tiny, diorama of Buffalo Bill's traveling extravaganza from the 1870s. Ernie and Virginia Palmquist carved the 20,000 figures --snake charmers, knife-throwers, fat ladies, cowpunchers, squaws, you name it -- that come to life every half hour in an animated show, free of charge. The gift shop features a glittering array of items to mark the occasion and remember your friends and loved ones by: iron dinner triangles ("Come an' gitit!"), books of western lore, taste-challenged T-shirts, edible bugs, stuffed jackalopes, candy cigarettes and more John Wayne paraphernalia than you can shake a stick at, Pilgrim. And if that's not enough, out back there's a corral with wagons, a tee pee, a buffalo and, yes, the famed 25-foot lantern-jawed brave, girning at you with Native American Muffler Man pride. Muffler Man aficionados will tell you this is a modified classic MM, not the official Indian classification, just so you know. However you categorize him he's awesome, and how.

So don't pass up the chance to see a real kitschy Americana treat the next time you're passing through central Nebraska. And the skies are not cloudy all day.

Get a load of this: North Platte, Nebraska's Norge Ball

They've got an awesome water tower in North Platte, too...

...and the grains don't come more amberer or wavier than in Nebraska.

We made an overnight stop in North Platte, Nebraska a few years ago. I had never been to the Cornhusker state before and I really liked it. Nice folks, nice wide open spaces. As is the case with long trips, every few days a laundromat stop is required. We found one in North Platte with a most beguiling sign. An odd globe bedazzled with Wonder Bread style polka-dots beckoned us to the North Platte Wash & Dry. I was three sheets to the wind with awe at its hypnotizing effect. It was dilapidated yet enchanting. I figured it was just a one-off roadside oddity, but upon further research came to find out that a whole chain of 3,400 Norge Village laundromats had these same globes dating back to the early 60s. Debra Jane Seltzer, the awesomest roadside architecture authority of them all, has a whole page of Norge balls on her amazing website. She says only 50 or so exist today, so I'm awash in gratitude to have been in the presence of such a cool one.