Sunday, October 3, 2010

Junk Jaunt 2010

Nebraska - a superb Bruce Springsteen album, ultra-conservative in pockets, lots of corn but none in the grocery store unless you want canned, and the absolute middle of the country. Seriously, Kearney, NE is the bulls eye of the U.S. Kearney might be worth 50 points on a dart board but I can't figure out why anyone would want to live there. Beauty is certainly in the eye of beholder here. Being from Colorado I'm clearly biased in my opinion and I don't mean to offend any native Nebraskans, who are lovely people by the way.
I traveled to Kearney to meet my parents for a little visit and to check out the Junk Jaunt. I'm always up for a road trip and Kearney is a mere 6 hours from Fort Collins so why not? The Junk Jaunt is billed as a 300-mile garage sale. It's really more of a Junk Journey, heavy on the Junk. Basically there are about 30 towns in Nebraska where the townies host a number of garage sales over three days in September every year. It's a great way to see the Nebraska countryside as you travel between towns hoping you don't run out of gas.
I ended up spending $34 - a basketball, chalk board, some jewelry, bowls, a New Jersey glass and random other crap. The only real revelation I had was that if you need any sort of dishware Nebraska is the place to go. I could've outfit every home in Fort Collins with the dishes, pans, bowls, cups, glasses, serving platters, etc. that I saw at EVERY single place we stopped. It was truly stunning how much of this stuff there was.
My favorite part of the trip was the giant billboard of Sarah Palin asking Nebraskans 'How's that hope 'n' change workin' for ya?' I felt bad for the farmers that drive by that everyday.
While I had a nice time visiting with my parents including the requisite disagreement or two with my dad (we did manage to avoid politics), I have to say I found Nebraska worth driving through.