D8 Thedford to Broken Bow

Ride Video

Another day, another hotel. Broken Bow has a cool, old hotel on its town square filled with playing kids on a Friday night. That beats sleeping by the Parks Maintenance building. But more on that later.

I had a casual morning because 1) I am now moving faster on the flat pavement and 2) it rained most of the night and it was clearing out. I went to the coffee shop, hung out, fiddled with my bike, and waited until 9. The clouds still looked doubtful so I put on my raingear.
I moved on toward the Nebraska National Forest. I plugged in m 2023 songs playlist and had a soundtrack for the hills. After 14 miles I pulled into the Forest Service office. This section of the National Forest is hand planted! Sadly, most of it burned last year. I bought a delicate Christmas ornament. Sadly, I broke it almost immediately. Where was my brain? 
At Dunning I decided the chance of rain was gone. I stripped off the raingear at a Sinclair. They had a booth as let me eat me lunch. Interestingly, they had some nice pottery.


On the only climb of the day, I met a woman walking on the other side of the road. She owns the ranch I was riding by and walks four miles each day. 

The whole ride until Dunning had been on the ‘bike path’ shoulder. After Dunning, it got older with frost cracks every 20 foot. Duh-dunk, duh-dunk. My strategy was to aim for the plants in the cracks. I pulled into Anselmo to get away from the cracks. There were a couple of buildings downtown. There was also a nice rocking chair. I rocked. 
Pulling out of Anselmo the bike lane shoulder was back! After 10 miles I got to Merna. There wasn’t much in downtown. While I was riding out, I heard cheering and a whistle. Football! I followed the noise and got to the Anselmo-Merna Coyotes (Cay-ots) hosting the Leyton Warriors. I stayed to watch a quarter. It was small town 8 man football. It seemed like qaint Americana until some poor kid got blindsided. He was OK, but his mom lost her s**t and had to go sit in the car. As she left she said, “Not a fan, never been a fan”. A concussion is still a concussion in a small town.
Broken Bow was just 9 miles from Merna. I planned to camp at Tomahawk Park. I found the self-registration, but they didn’t have a pen and I didn’t see where the tent spots were so I decide to got into downtown to find a pen and a person who could tell me where to camp. The road led straight to City Hall. They’ll know. I talked to Joel. He set me straight and I got a Broken Bow pen! The tent spot was disappointing. It was on the side of their Parks maintance building next to someone’s house. I asked were I could kill an hour. The answer was the Bonfire Grill in the Arrow Hotel. It turns out the Arrow is a cool 1928 building with reasonable rates. Better than a spot between a maintenance building and someone’s house so I checked in.
It was a good decision. I am in the center of town next to City Square Park where a whole lot of people were hanging out. I took a walk enjoying the sights. Later I headed back to the Bonfire in the lobby of the Arrow to write this. Everyone was wonderful except for Brad who seemed nice but stiffed the new bartender Carmon saying he didn’t like one of the bourbons they gave them. Later he told me Seattle is a hellhole because of people like me, but he still likes me. There’s one in every bunch. But let’s end with Joel in City Hall who just did a floodplain manager course at FEMA’s training center in Emitsburg. We connected over hazard mitigation. I told him about FEMA BRIC grants. I hope they get one. Let’s end with Jay who saw me heading out of City Hall and invited me into his law firm to talk gravel bikes, let me refill me water bottles, and gave me ice cream. 
Jay of the ice cream

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