A State With Nothing to Do*

Nebraska presented me with a unique road-tripping challenge. For every state up until now I had somewhat of an idea of what to do or at least somewhere to stay. In Nebraska I had neither of these luxuries, but committed to staying three days with a budget of $150 to get me through it. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the state is dedicated to making the non-residents leave as quickly as possible out of sheer boredom. Even the locals admit there’s nothing to do.

My first activity was finding a place to sleep. Camping is available pretty much everywhere; free camping is too, you just have to look a bit harder. A friend recommended a site just off the highway. There were a few other campers around so I knew I found the right place. I got to the last open site, but opted to spend the night in the car after seeing the air thick with bugs – the kind that bite. To avoid getting eaten alive, I kept the windows rolled up for the night. I didn't get much sleep.*

The search for breakfast started around 6 am. It was made easy since the only place open that early was Penny’s Diner. The diner was strategically positioned within walking distance of the three surrounding hotels, resulting in a decent early-bird breakfast rush at 6:30 am.

What made this diner unique was the lack of separation between the customers and the cooking area. There was a row of tables next to a bar with a divider that went up to head level, leaving the entire kitchen area within view and spitting distance of everyone. The waitress** handed me a menu, three sheets of paper stapled together, along with a cup of water.***

I ordered the “hearty breakfast.” It was about on par with most other diners I’ve been to: chicken-fried steak, eggs, hash browns, and toast with jelly.**** I ate, paid, then left.

As I drove from west to east, there were three consistencies: plains/grasslands, agriculture (mostly corn), with the occasional lake thrown in to break the monotony. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) seemed like it might offer something to do so that’s where I was headed. The landscape kept me fighting to stay awake.*****

Since UNL charged an unreasonable amount of money for parking I opted to park in the downtown area just outside campus. During my walk over, I came across a group of young boys****** but the downtown area was otherwise completely dead. Odd for it being 6 pm on a weekend, but this is Nebraska: the state where nothing happens.

I eventually found the university cafeteria where I asked the first student I saw if he could swipe me in for a meal since I didn’t have my card. He did, I filled my plate with food that tasted mediocre at best.

I sat with two freshmen, one studying software engineering and the other mechanical engineering. Both grew up in Nebraska. This was my chance to finally get a local’s perspective on how I can get the true Nebraskan experience. I asked if there was anything around I show check out, (not touristy though, I clarified).

They both laughed.

“You won’t find touristy stuff out here,” Reggie, the software engineering major, said. “Now that I think about it, there’s really nothing to do around here.”*******

Nebraska in Asterisks

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*I didn’t get much sleep due to being woken up by someone knocking on the window while shining a flashlight in my face.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I thought, “The first time I sleep in my car in an area that’s actually designated for that purpose and the police come anyway.”

I fumbled with the keys before I eventually got the window down. The officer’s uniform looked real enough, but I still wasn’t sure what I had done wrong.

“What are you doing out here?” the officer leaned down to look at me through the cracked window.

He was probably examining me to make sure I wasn’t drunk or high. He would have seen a confused, tired, young adult who smelled like sweat. I glanced down at my blanket and said I was spending the night out here.

“But why out here?” he immediately fired his next question.

“I’m on a road trip,” I said. “A friend told me about this campsite.”

He asked for my license and registration. That was when I had to explain I was driving a car that wasn’t mine from San Diego to the owners who were moving back to Michigan together. They gave me gas money to drive their other car, suggesting I could make a trip out of it. The officer didn’t seem content with that answer and kept firing questions at me. Where am I going next? Who does this car belong to? Where are they? You know tomorrow’s Sunday, why are you going to University of Nebraska?

I was barely keeping up but knew I wasn’t in the wrong and confidently answered the questions in my tired state.

“I just think it’s weird you’re out here,” the officer sighed. “This is the lake all the drug smugglers go to. Why didn’t you go to the lake across the street?”

Though I wasn’t in the position to be asking questions, I now had a few of my own. Do I look like a drug smuggler? If I was making money smuggling drugs would I really be sleeping in my car?

I decided I wasn’t awake enough to go to jail, so settled on a simple, “Oh.”

“Yeah, the drugs come from California passing through here on their way to Michigan,” he said.

The dots connected when I noticed him still holding my California driver's license and realized the car I was driving had Michigan plates. This looked bad.

He had me repeat my entire story. I did, then asked if he wanted to see my blog. He did not. He then asked me a few new questions:

“Do you have a large sum of money with you?”

I held back a laugh and said no.

“Do you have any illegal substances in your vehicle?”

I said no again, wondering how many people he got with that question. He said to wait a minute as he headed back to his car.

I imagined the officer’s disappointment. He probably thought he was going to bust one of the elusive drug runners who apparently frequent this lake. Would have been the talk of the dinner table for a few nights at least, maybe his ticket for promotion to captain. But no, he just found a kid who happened to choose the worst lake to sleep at. After a few minutes he came back and handed me my license.

“I just think it’s weird you’re out here,” he said again, trailing off this time.

“Well, is there anything else I can provide you with?” This time I did laugh.

“No… be safe out there,” the officer said, shaking his head.

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**It was in this diner that I discovered there are two kinds of diner waitresses in the Midwest.

The first will call you “hon,” with every interaction making you feel like you’re talking to an aunt you haven’t seen in a while.

The second, the category this waitress falls under, is powered by black coffee paired with a hatred of humanity, particularly the kind that comes in her diner. She’ll never admit this, but the venom with which she asks “What are we drinking?” and “Have you decided yet?” says it all. She’s like the bitter aunt at family reunions, who’s on her third marriage, and has had enough of everyone’s crap as soon as she walks in the room.

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***I was already feeling out of my element here. I was the odd one out with all the other customers men sporting gray hair and some iteration of an “old guys rule” article of clothing. While taking my first sip of water I felt something brush past my hair as it flew through the air, clattering on the table in front of me.

An orange crayon.

Who did it come from? What did it mean?

I glanced around to make sure there weren’t any kids; I was the closest one in age to a child. No one acknowledged what just happened. I was concerned.

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****I was offered grape or strawberry jelly. I chose grape. Without missing a beat, the waitress grabbed a little plastic cup, then the squeeze bottle of Smuckers jelly, squirting the last of it into the cup all within a few feet of me. I guess I was supposed to imagine I didn’t just see it come out of the Smuckers bottle, that it was a secret Midwestern recipe scooped from an unmarked mason jar. I did, it still tasted really sweet and kinda off. Maybe someone didn’t seal the mason jar properly.

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*****You can’t change much about the landscape as you drive, but you can change how you experience it. I put the band “Gaelic Storm” on shuffle. For the uninitiated, Gaelic Storm is a modern Irish band. Their songs explore topics like drinking adventures, love, and fictional legends similar to American tall tales. There’s a certain amount of irony that comes with listening to music with so much happening in a place where the exact opposite is going on. Imagining all these adventures taking place in the cornfields was a fun creative endeavor.

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******I was in the middle of the crosswalk when the boys – most of them shirtless – yelled “Hey mister!”

It felt wrong to just ignore a bunch of kids so I walked back to the sidewalk to ask what they needed. They all managed to keep straight faces when one tried to recruit me to help look for his fish that had escaped to the streets. Before I could respond to that request he dove into another barely related and equally unbelievable story. Clearly I couldn’t help them, so I suggested God might be the next person they solicit.

A glance back at the crosswalk showed I couldn’t escape yet, even jaywalking was impossible with cars whizzing by. The boys quickly moved on to their second pitch.

“Can we interest you in any of our products?” a new spokesperson unzipped his backpack.

I had no idea what to expect, but decided the only thing that would interest me was an orange crayon. Then I would run away very fast.

The boy pulled out a strip of condoms.

“These are very high quality,” he put on his best salesman voice. “They can all be yours for $25.”

I smirked, thinking back to lemonade stands my sister and I would run on hot summer days like this one, when we were their age. While this wasn’t quite as wholesome as a lemonade stand, I could relate with the boys’ entrepreneurial spirit. They definitely knew their audience though; we were less than a mile away from the nation’s horniest university, awarded by College Magazine in 2015.

Politely declining, I wished them luck as I crossed the street. They walked away snickering quietly, off to cause more chaos on a Sunday evening.

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*******”I guess that’s why we have such a tight community,” Reggie continued. “We have to make our own fun.”

Some places have so many activities that you’d have to put in effort to avoid finding something to do. San Diego has beaches, Instagram-able communities designed around a particular atmosphere, a vibrant and diverse food scene. Nebraska doesn’t really have any of that so visitors and residents alike have to get a bit more creative. You have to look beyond the surface level experiences, maybe some help from those around you, but if you keep searching, you will find entertainment.

Nebraska is a state with nothing to do – with an asterisk.