Grand Island, Neb. – I am sitting in the shade, watching my son swim and my daughter play in the sand. A gentle breeze blows my hair. The birds sing. I have a cold drink at hand and lots of cash left in my pocket because I am not in Florida, the Caribbean or Mexico. I am at Mormon Island State Park, south of Grand Island in central Nebraska.
There are more peaceful places in the heartland to take a break – the traffic roars along Interstate 80 just on the other side of the lake – but if you’re on the road eastbound this summer, I recommend a rest stop at exit 312, to U.S. 281, on the west side of Grand Island. Head north and take a quick right turn into the park.
It’s a much better highway stretch break than average for the cost of a $3 Nebraska State Parks day pass. Take a nap in the shade, tell your kids (or your spouse) to go jump in the lake, spread out a picnic, let the little ones run off some energy. All this park lacks is wireless Internet access to make it perfect, because if I had e-mail, I could go ahead and file this list of why Nebraska makes a better vacation spot than Mexico.
1. My children are doing exactly what they would be doing on the beach at Cabo, and I didn’t have to buy them airplane tickets.
2. The border crossing consists of watching the “Welcome to Colorful Colorado” sign recede in your rearview mirror.
3. As long as you don’t talk about college football, they speak roughly the same language.
4. No sharks.
5. You can defeat petty bigotry and break down the barriers to cross-cultural understanding. How many Nebraska jokes have you heard lately?
Best of all: 6. Nobody is trying to sell me a time share.
Railroad Town
If you head a little farther north off the freeway in Grand Island, to the intersection of Nebraska 281 and U.S. 34, you will be hard-pressed not to spend the whole day at the Stuhr
Museum of the Prairie Pioneer. Skip the museum itself and head straight to Railroad Town, a collection of relocated and restored homes and businesses that put you straight back into the life of a prosperous prairie town, circa 1890.
There’s an 1860s ranch on the property for contrast. By the 1890s, the homesteaders have moved out of their claim shacks and settled into their new lives on the plains. The housewives hang their washing and feed their chickens, the newspaperman sets type into a frame, and the general store sells rag dolls and horehound candy. My husband noticed one lady’s “Votes for Women” sash and noted his approval. “Then you’re a temperance man?” she asked.
“Oh, no,” Doug said. “A man’s got to have his whiskey.” We later spotted her in the Fourth of July parade, waving a broom and chanting, “Sweep the drunks out of town!”
Turn right on U.S. 34, then left on Locust and look for the Runza Drive-Inn if you want to understand what makes Nebraskans homesick. Runza sandwiches – chopped cabbage and beef baked in bread dough – are known in Kansas as bierocks (a corruption of “pierogie,” by the way) and in northern Colorado as krautburgers. Germans from Russia who homesteaded on the Great Plains brought this food to America, and if you call an expatriate Nebraskan from the Runza drive-through, he will break down and weep.
If you go a little farther off the freeway, to downtown Grand Island, be sure to stop in at the Coney Island Lunch Room and say hello to Gus Katrouzos, who has been holding down one end of the counter since his dad bought the joint in 1933, paying $2 a day in rent.
Downtown Grand Island is as shelled-out a former business district as I have ever seen, with antiques malls, storefront churches and plywood where the men’s stores and Woolworths used to be. But Gus, now 81, and his son George continue to do a land-office business in Coney dogs covered in homemade chili, yellow mustard and chopped onions ($1.85) with fresh-cut fries ($1.85) on the side. It’s not too far from the original 1933 menu, still hanging on the wall, with “Mexican chili” and “Italian spaghetti” featured, along with a pork chop dinner including bread and coffee for 35 cents.
Here in 2006, better to kiss your diet goodbye and chase your meal with a chocolate malt ($3.25) – three scoops of ice cream, milk, chocolate syrup (“Not too much,” says Gus, “I don’t like the chocolate to overpower the flavor of the ice cream”) and malt powder.
George took over the business 18 years ago. “He makes all the chili sauce,” Gus says. “He does all the planning. And I hang in there pretty good.”
Just like the Stuhr Museum, the Coney Island Lunch Room attracts busloads of schoolkids on field trips, experiencing the flavors of days gone by. Nebraska’s tourism folks have been working overtime to get people off the interstates and over their stereotypes of Boring and Flat. Try it, you might like it.
Lisa Everitt is a freelance writer who lives in Arvada. Contact her at lisa@well.com.
The details
Stuhr Museum of the Prairie
Pioneer is open every day except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day at the corner of Nebraska 281 and U.S. 34 south of Grand Island. Summer hours (May 1 through Sept. 30): Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday 12-5 p.m. Admission: $8 adults, $7 seniors, $6 children 7-12, children 6 and under free. Off season, Railroad Town is open for exterior viewing only. Special events throughout the year, including blacksmithing workshops, Vintage Base Ball games, Halloween and Christmas festivals.
Information: 308-385-5316 or stuhrmuseum.org
All about Runza: runza.com includes a map of more than 70 locations in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Colorado. Displaced Nebraskans can satisfy their Runza jones in Fort Collins and Loveland.
Coney Island Lunch Room, 104 E. Third St., Grand Island, 308-382-7155. Open most days for lunch.
Nebraska State Parks information: outdoornebraska.org, 800-826-7275.
