Day 12 - Cheyenne WY to Omaha NE

Wildlife tally: pronghorn antelope, lots of cattle

Today was a rather long and somewhat boring ride on I-80. The most notable thing was the steady progression from arid to reasonably wet. And the increase in temperature. It was in the mid 50's when we left Cheyenne. It was 102 in the middle of Nebraska and 97 in Omaha at 8 PM. 

Omaha is a neat little city. It has a very vibrant downtown area and everyone we met was really friendly. I'd like to explore it more someday. The kids and I got dinner and brought it back to the hotel. They swam in the pool while I took the rental car back and Susan did laundry. We were all in bed at 10 PM. But we had to get up at 3:15 am to catch the train. Ugh.

Some random observations from the trip so far:
Gas
Prices ranged from $3.39 in Nebraska and Iowa to $4.59 at a remote gas station in the Tetons. Oddly, the price of regular in some Midwest states is 10-15 cents more than mid grade. 
The brands are totally different than the east coast. The only one that was familiar was an occasional Exxon station.

People
I was surprised to find that at least half the people in the national parks are from foreign countries. I've had several times when someone stopped me to take a picture of their family and the communication consisted of a thrust of a camera toward me and a heavily accented "picture please". Japanese, Chinese and Germans seem to be well represented but I have heard Italian and many other unidentifiable languages. The Japanese seem to favor large SUV rentals and are usually well dressed. Nothing like dress shoes, kahkis and a polo shirt for a hike around a boardwalk in a geyser field. The Germans tend to be young and properly geared for serious hiking and camping. 

There are a lot of Americans on Harleys. Maybe because the Sturgis motorcycle rally was a couple of weeks ago? Standard attire for them is jeans or leathers and a black t-shirt emblazoned with their local bike shop. Must be a challenge to pack light enough to fit all your stuff on your bike somewhere. And a real bummer when it rains. There are obviously no helmet laws in the Midwest and Western states we were in. Very few people wore them. 

Electronics
In the first post I mentioned that we were charging a fleet of electronics. That was a nightly ritual. I'm almost embarrassed to list the devices we had:
2 iPhones + bluetooth headsets
1 garmin
3 kindles
2 still cameras
1 video camera
2 gameboys
1 iPod Touch
1 laptop

Keeping them all charged was interesting. We had a dual usb charger for the car and a 12V to 120V inverter for the car. Only 1 place we stayed had enough outlets to charge most of the stuff at once. The rest of the time it was done in shifts. 

There are sizable chunks of the Midwest and West that have no cell service. Some much for Verizon's commercial: "Can you hear me now?" No. 

On the coasts we take 3G data service for granted and look for 4G. In most of the Midwest and West it is 2G in areas that are not cities. 

Every place we stayed had free Wifi.

I sprang for one month of iPhone hotspot. That turns your iPhone into a wifi internet connection using cell phone data service. It was extremely handy for me on the train and on the longer car rides. I got some work done that needed to get done. I know I am on vacation but the business still needs to get run. I would not call this mode of operation reliable though. The connection dropped pretty regularly and I had to reboot devices a few times. AT&T and the iPhone 4 limit the number of devices connected via wireless to 3. Sorry Dave. No iPod Touch on wireless for you. 

Food
Expect to pay 25% to 50% more for groceries and restaurant food around the parks. 
Fast food - pretty much non-existent in most Midwest and Western towns except for Subway and DQ. 
The Urban Spoon and Around Me apps are really handy for locating decent places to eat. 

Navigation
Don't put all your trust in the Garmin. It was outright wrong on a couple of occasions. On several others it probably would have gotten us there but certainly not in the easiest or fastest way.

Susan brought along paper maps. I brought along the Google maps app in my iPhone. Guess which one wins when there is no cell service?

Cops and speed
Many of the roads are 75 MPH, even 2 lane roads. 
National parks are 45 MPH and they do have cops patrolling.
Outside of the national parks, I saw 3 speed traps the entire time. I see that many on my way to work most days.