Nebraska, You'll Have To Drive Through Us Sometime

[norml]

Nebraska
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


State of Nebraska



(Flag of Nebraska)



(Seal of Nebraska)



State nickname: Cornhusker State

Other U.S. States
Capital Lincoln
Largest city Omaha
Governor Dave Heineman
Official languages English
Area 200,520 km² (16th)
- Land 199,099 km²
- Water 1,247 km² (0.6%)
Population (2000)
- Population 1,711,263 (38th)
- Density 8.6 /km² (42nd)
Admission into Union
- Date March 1, 1867
- Order 37th
Time zone Central: UTC-6/-5 (eastern)
Mountain: UTC-7/-6 (western)
Latitude 40°N to 43°N
Longitude 95°25'W to 104°W
Width 340 km
Length 690 km
Elevation
- Highest 1,653 m
- Mean 790 m
- Lowest 256 m
Abbreviations
- USPS NE
- ISO 3166-2 US-NE
Web site www.state.ne.us
Nebraska a midwestern State of the United States, Nebraska gets its name from a Native American (Oto) word meaning "flat water", after the Platte River that flows through the State. Once considered part of the Great American Desert, it is now a leading farming state. Nebraskans have practiced scientific farming to turn the Nebraska prairie into a land of ranches and farms. Much of the history of the State is the story of the impact of the Nebraska farmer.

Contents
1 History

1.1 "Rural flight"


2 Law and Government

3 Geography

4 Economy

5 Demographics

5.1 Religion


6 Interstates

7 Important cities and towns

7.1 Largest cities and towns
7.2 Largest urban areas


8 Education

8.1 Colleges and universities


9 Sports teams

10 Climate

11 Miscellaneous information

12 Further reading

13 External links




snip


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska

[matcom]

1. ugh. i HAVE driven through - TWICE!

x(

people think i'm joking when i say when you drive through Nebraska, the road is straight and flat and off in the fffffffaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrr distance you see the horizon. problem is, you NEVER REACH THE FUCKING HORIZON! :grr:

[norml]

3. You should thank us for having a road that is straight and flat.

You have to get off that road, if you want to see anything different.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. Very true

same is true of Kansas and Missouri.

[Abies]

2. I grew up there.

I just drove through it last month. What a study in landscape change as one heads west...

[Love Bug]

4. Well, Carhenge is in Nebraska, which is pretty cool

[Mr. McD]

5. I go there about every two years

I spent the first 13 years of my life there

It's a good place to be from.:)

[DELUSIONAL]

6. My truck HATES Nebraska gas

Too much alcohol in the gas -- my truck must be a Mormon.

Otherwise -- nice state -- wide open -- can see for ever and ever.

But dang the WIND is horrible -- dust storms are awful.

I drove through Nebraska last December and this May (2005).

Walmart has taken over many of the small towns. No small department stores or supermarkets -- just the empty buildings where the businesses used to be.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. I have

Western Nebraska is beautiful. One of the hidden treasures in our country.

I will be in Arnold, NE next month. They have a blues festival and my friend talked me in to going.

[Mz Pip]

9. I spent the first

7 years of my life on a little farm about 50 miles from Lincoln. I'd love to go back and see the town again. I know the house is long gone but the town is still there - Benedict, due north of York.

Pretty country, even if it is so flat you can stand on a rock and see 200 miles. :-)

Mz Pip
:dem:

[norml]

10. I'll have to take some photos of Benedict sometime for you.

http://www.hometownlocator.com/City/Benedict-Nebraska.cfm

[foreigncorrespondent]

11. Been there...

...done that. Don't want to go back! Sorry norml, it just didn't appeal to me.

[norml]

16. See, I told you You'll Have To Drive Through Us Sometime

And you're in Australia!

Actually I've been thinking this place might be a bit too red for me and that I might want to move to a bluer place, maybe a swing state where my vote would count for more.

[donheld]

12. Been there done that

pleeeeeeeeeeease don't make me do it again.

[SarahB]

13. I grew up there.

Until I was 15. Fortunately, I only had to drive through the whole state once (went to Colorado as a kid). Thankfully, I grew up in Omaha which was on the eastern line, so I avoided such pain. :evilgrin:

[skygazer]

14. I've driven through every one of the lower 48

And I've found beauty in every one of them. Yeah, it's flat - but what a sky! And far off in the distance to one side, you may see the line of a freight train moving west and hear the sound of the whistle in the distance, a lonely and haunting sound. I come from Vermont, beautiful in its own way, a place of mountains and rivers - to drive through a place that is so wide open is exhilerating to me and never boring.

[bobbieinok]

15. my grandmother moved to NE in a covered wagon and lived in a sod

house......her father was in the union army from IA and got one of the land grants.......they farmed near Merna and Broken Bow

later, after her husband died, she moved to Grand Island where she ran a rooming house and met her second husband (an immigrant from Switzerland....I've been where he grew up, and I don't know how he went from seeing the Bern Alps from his Swiss home to homesteading on flat NE land)

in 1906, my grandmother, her husband, her 2 kids from her first marriage, and her mother and father moved to Tulsa, apparently to take advantage of the booming economy after the discovery of oil near here

my ex-husband's family moved to Thayer Co in 1870 from Chautauqua Co NY....his great-grandfather was the first sheriff of the county

[norml]

27. Wow! That reads like a Willa Cather/Mari Sandoz novel.

http://fp.image.dk/fpemarxlind/

http://www.gordoncitylibrary.org/mari.htm

My ancestors came to Nebraska in the 1800s to work on the railroad out of Fairbury.

[bobbieinok]

28. when I was in jr hi I read A Lantern in Her Hand to try to get a feel of

what her life might have been

her mother died in 1935; some time before that there was an article in the paper about her: she talked about trying to keep house and fight off the grasshoppers

my grandfather died in 1919; the newspaper story of his death/funeral made much of the fact that there were so few soldiers of the Union still alive

I've always been fascinated by Indians; when my grandmother made a very negative comment about them, my mother tried to help me understand her a bit by pointing out that she had lived as a child and a young woman much closer in time to 'Indian raids on the frontier'

[norml]

29. My Grandma was always telling us that there were Indians

camped on the edge of town, and that they would steal us away. I knew that it wasn't true, and just put it off to her having grown up in another time when there were Indians camped at the edge of town.

[lpbk2713]

17. This makes me think of Gene Hackman's line ......

English Bob: Well, actually, what I heard was that you fell off your horse, drunk of course, and that you broke your bloody neck.

Little Bill Daggett: I heard that one myself, Bob. Hell, I even thought I was dead 'til I found out it was just that I was in Nebraska.

[tarkus]

18. I get annoyed by the vast wasteland of central PA...

I don't think I would ever be able to drive across Nebraska or any one of those states out there.

[5thGenDemocrat]

19. Yes, I'll have to drive through Nebraska some day

Truth is, I still have to prove to myself that North Dakota actually exists. But first things first.
John
Interesting Saginaw, Michigan fact: The great Nebraska football coach, Bob Devaney, was born on the same block I live on. I can see his childhood house from my kitchen window.
It is now two days, eleven hours and 16 minutes to FUNDAY. I'll point out the place if and when you get here.

[Swede]

20. Been there twice.

It's a beautiful place actually. Had some pretty good Mexican food in a town whose name I cannot remember.

[rexcat]

21. My wife and I lived in Omaha early to mid-eighties...

We moved from Florida to Nebraska. What a culture shock that was! She was in grad school at UNMC and I was a supervisor at Children's Hospital. Omaha was alright but the winters were painful.

[SarahB]

23. No way!

My mom used to work at the Children's Hosptial in Omaha then. She was a NICU nurse. Wow, small world. :hi:

[rexcat]

25. I was in the NICU a lot...

As the microbiology supervisor I worked with the ID officer and was in the units and on the floors helping collect specimens for cultures. Both the chemistry supervisor and I did a lot of community outreach.

[leftofthedial]

22. yea Bugeaters!

Everyone should spend a month in Nebraska. It only takes a few hours.

[norml]

24. Them bugs is good eatin`, lots of protean in em!

What were the Nebraska Cornhuskers called before they became the Cornhuskers?
"The Nebraska football teams of the 1890's were called the Bugeaters in honor of the insect eating bullbat, a wide mouthed nocturnal bird which fed off the grasshoppers infesting the Nebraska plains"
taken from: from the Husker Century documentary from NETV at: http://net.unl.edu/sportsFeat/hc_pioneer_index.html

[Heidi]

26. I actually love Nebraska.

I lived there for 13 years and, except for the winters, it's one of my favorite places on earth . . . mostly because of the people.

[Jara sang]

30. I've driven across Nebraska several times.

One good thing about it: Willa Cather wrote about and lived there.

[progressoid]

31. ‘We did Nebraska in seven and a half minutes today...

..I think that's the best way to do Nebraska’

Quote from an SR-71 pilot!

[sasquatch]

32. I remember when they used to have GOOD football teams

I always thought they were a little overrated though, they had the worst philosiphies and strategies during bowl games too. But now they suck the chrome off a trailer hitch they're so bad.

[norml]

33. That was when they were early on with strength training (steroid using)

programs. They are no longer alone in having that edge. Cutting back on the number of under the table goodies, and get out of jail free cards they hand out has also made it more difficult to recruit a winning team.