July 11

View of the day-Crossing the Niobrara River in northern Nebraska.

We made it back to Great Bend and it was 2:30am before we managed to get to bed. We were planning on sleeping in a bit to make up for the long day, but around 7am we heard the pitter-patter of rain falling on the roof.

Al was concerned about getting the tractor and cart load out to the highway from the bins over the wet roads, so he couldn't sleep anymore thinking about how much rain had fallen out there. We got everything put away in the camper, pulled the slides in and headed west to the bins. It rained off and on all the way out and some of the showers were pretty heavy, but we managed to get out there with the camper and get the shop trailer hooked on behind it and then try to get around the two bad corners to the highway. Al got out of the yard all right and had to make a right turn onto the main road, but couldn't take it as wide as he would have liked. Marilyn watched as he came around the corner and the wheels of the trailer dipped out of sight into the ditch, but he anticipated that happening and had the momentum to pull right through without any damage. We made it to the highway and breathed a sigh of relief.

It pretty much poured all the way north of Hayes, but as we neared the Nebraska border it let up. Just into the state we had to pull in to a temporary weigh scale to get checked out. We pulled in just as another harvester was leaving and we ran into him at the service station in Alma where he was parked. He asked Al how he had managed to get through the checkpoint so fast, since they went through his unit with a fine tooth comb and he had to park it until he had gotten it repaired. Just lucky there.

The rest of the move was relatively uneventful. We did have to stop once for a wreck on the side of the road. They were loading the scrap and remains of a truck and camper onto a flat deck. It was a harvester that had rolled the rig, and the camper was in pieces, you couldn't really tell what it was until you were right up close to it. The rest of their convoy was parked up the road a way, waiting to get through the hold up. Al says "No matter how bad you have it, there's always someone who has it worse".

As we neared the SD border we had to go through a valley where the Niobrara River flows. The climb up the hill is fairly steep and winding, so you can't really get steam up to make it to the top without shifting gears.

Marilyn was down to third gear and just hoping not to have to shift any lower, when Al came on the radio and asked if the tire shrapnel on the side of the road was there when she went by. Who has time to look at the ditch when you are going 20mph? By the time she made it to the top of the hill, there was a blue haze in her rear view mirror, and it was official...it hadn't been there when she went by. She limped to a flat stretch at the top, thankfully with tandem tires, there was still one tire on that side holding the camper up. With the shop trailer behind the camper, we had the compressor and all the tools to get the tire changed quite quickly. We finally made it to Hamill around 7:30pm, and after getting the camper parked, and unloading the combine and tractor, it was time to call it a day.

It is a bit of a culture shock, normally we go from Great Bend (pop. around 15,000), to Phillipsburg (pop. around 2600) to Hamill, with a population of (according to the Mayor) 13 and that's including us! We do get phone service here (605-842-0710 if you want to call), but we're back to dial-up, so it takes longer for everything, internet-wise that is. Peace and quiet (except for the wild turkeys roaming the streets).

But, we're supposed to be combining anyway...