Day 37 - "The Birds"....

We stayed at a yocal motel last night and the chap who managed the place was the nicest chap we had met so far on our trip. He could not help us enough and gave a super discount on the room which was ace! However, his personal appearance was not what you would expect of someone who was managing a pig sty - let alone a motel! He looked a bit like John Goodman, who hadn't slept for a week, with a white vest on that had been soaked in gravy for about a month. Annoyingly for me though he was fascinated with my accent and had me saying all kinds of things for his personal amusement! I was kind of hoping for an Angelina Jolie lookalike to have such a fascination with my accent - not John Goodman's long lost brother!

We have been fairly lucky with the weather thus far but today that luck ran out big style. It rained from dawn to dusk - and at one point it rained with such biblical madness that we had to stop and let the worst of it past. Here is a car shot just before we had to stop - nasty!


We took the opportunity when we stopped to fill up with Gas - we take turns in doing this thankless task. It was Stephs turn this time - ha ha!!!

There is usually something that distinguishes each state we visit from another one and it is not usually something obvious. The state of Nebraska had an unusual trait - suicidal birds!! When driving along the endless roads, we must have nearly hit about 15 different types of bird. They hang around on the side of the road and as you approach them, they fly toward the car and miss a certain death by only inches. I think Nebraska must have been inspiration for Hithcocks film the Birds.

After fighting through the weather we made it to 'Carhenge'. A replica of the English Stonehenge - but made of old cars! It was quite a bizarre sight - one which the Nebraska state authorities tried to have destroyed when it was created - but now it is there number 1 tourist attraction (which doesn't say much for Nebraska!)

There are also some other car art pieces dotted around....

We were the only people there - so had time to pose freely....

We made it all the way into South Dakota to a town called Mount Rushmore! Yep the place with the presidents heads in the mountain side! So that is stop number 1 in the morning, then onto another mountain sculpture called 'Crazy Horse' - then onto Fargo, the site of the brilliant Coen brothers film of the same name.........Evening all.