Sally's Fifth Birthday

Bud and Sally - Western Nebraska 2005


Bud bought his third Honda Accord, 4-door sedan, (first brand new one) in August five years ago. He went shopping for a certified, used Honda but the Bellevue, NE dealership did not have any with manual transmission which is how he ended up with a new car.

He made the deal one week and we returned the following week to pick her up. I guess to be more accurate, this would be a fifth anniversary rather than fifth birthday.






We decided to take a 3-day trip to western Nebraska for Sally's maiden voyage after picking her up in Bellevue. On the way west we began kicking around possible names for his new baby. I suggest Maeve, Morgana and Mariah as well as "The Black Mistress". Black Beauty, Black Pearl and Black Witch were also discarded. When Bud finally said, "I've got it! I'll call her Sally after Sally Hemings", I thought the name was perfect.


We arrived in Scottsbluff, NE late that afternoon. The next morning we began exploring, first finding the remaining Oregon Trail wagon track through Mitchell Pass at Scotts Bluff National Monument. From there we went to Chimney Rock National Monument - one of the most well known landmarks on the Oregon Trail and pictured on Nebraska's state quarter.
Then to Courthouse Rock, another landmark, in front of which I took the above photograph of Bud and Sally.

One of the side trips I most enjoyed was to Agate Fossil Beds National Monument north of Scottsbluff on Hwy 29. We did not make the hike out to the fossil beds, but we did hike the path as far as the small footbridge over the headwaters of the Niobrara River - at this point almost narrow enough to jump over.

The name Agate comes from James Cook's nearby "Agate Springs Ranch" settled in the late 1800's. The agates found in the area are of the moss agate variety. Cook was a friend of Lakota Chief Red Cloud and his band. The visitor's center at the park has more than 500 native artifacts from Cook's collection.


Bud at Chief Crazy Horse's Death Marker


From the fossil beds we drove on north and east to Fort Robinson. The fort played a major role in the Sioux Wars from 1876 to 1890. Chief Crazy Horse surrendered there in May, 1877 and died there during an escape attempt in September that year. In World War II, the fort was a German POW camp. On the way back to Scottsbluff we drove through the scenic Lake Minatare state recreation area - the site of Nebraska's only lighthouse built by the Veteran's Conservation Corps in 1939.





Sally and Bud on the beach at South Padre
Island National Seashore. (Note the trash
washed up after Hurricane Katrina.)


Sally made a longer trip in October. After attending an RV Association Meeting in San Antonio for employer Midwest Products, we drove on down to South Padre Island - an area I had read about and wanted to visit ever since it was voted #1 in "America's Best Beaches" one year. The beach wasn't exactly pristine six weeks after Hurricane Katrina - there was a lot of trash washing up including sofas and refrigerators. Still, it was fun driving on the sand, miles and miles up the shoreline.





I was so excited to find this large shell - a lightning whelk, I believe. I was going to bring it home then I realized its animal was still alive in it - not just a shell after all. So I had Bud take the picture then put the shell back into the gulf. I just read this week that the animal probably dies once it has been beached anyway even if it is put back in the water. I don't know if that is true or not. I might have kept the shell if I'd known for sure it would die anyway.


Sally has been to the Pacific Ocean twice, the Gulf of Mexico once and the Atlantic Ocean once. She has 68,000 miles on her now. She seems to like road trips just as much as Bud and I. Hm-m-m, is a Canadian trip in her near future?