One man, his bike and 91 restaurants: A culinary tour of NebraskaWhy in the world would anyone ride 3,100 miles back and forth across Nebraska? Ron Snell has the answer. Story by Ron Snell |
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RON SNELL OF NORTH PLATTE has done adventurous things in Nebraska before. He’s hoofed a thousand miles. He’s paddled, pushed and pulled a homemade boat across our longest river. Last summer, he embarked on his third great adventure: a zig-zagging, 31-day, 3,100-mile bicycle culinary tour. Why all the adventure? Turns out there’s good reason at the root of it all.
August 13. Looking back over 3,100 miles and 31 days of riding my bicycle to a restaurant in every county in Nebraska, this one day says it all:
“In unseasonable cold, I reluctantly hunched onto my recumbent bicycle as the sun came up at the cozy RV park in Harrison. Stiff and sore, I pedaled out of town onto the rolling plains. As I warmed up and climbed slowly east to the scenic overlook on Highway 20, my breath came out in foggy puffs like the little engine that could. When I pulled off at the overlook, I could see a rumpled world of pine-covered bluffs and cliffs stretched out before me, threaded by a two-lane downhill road that is the fantasy of every touring bicyclist.”
On a tight schedule to ride 100 miles and visit two restaurants before dark, I only had a few minutes to gaze in wonder and pose for photos before settling back on the bike. In moments, I was riding the brakes in a hair-raising plummet to the valley below, 30 miles per hour without turning a pedal. This would not be a good time to blow a tire, I kept thinking. Past blurred evergreens, past Fort Robinson State Park, into Crawford breathing hard with exhilaration and amazed at this piece of Nebraska. Nebraska? Who would’ve guessed?
Brunch was scheduled for 10 a.m. at the High Plains Drifter Cookshack, 20 miles outside of Crawford on a dirt road. Frankly, I fretted about the delay and the detour, but my itinerary was firm and owner, Mike, was waiting for me in town with a rugged pickup. I was immediately intrigued by the cowboy hat, the silver beard and the twinkling eyes. My impatience morphed into astonishment even before we drove into his miniature town, created over the last few years in the middle of a rugged moonscape from old homestead buildings that he, his wife, his dad and mom had hauled in and rebuilt: a cafe, a saloon, a post office, a one-room schoolhouse, a blacksmith shop, a jail and more.
Two and a half hours later, I had eaten a handmade breakfast, listened non-stop to some of Nebraska’s most interesting characters and vowed to come back for several days of roaming the other-earthly countryside, exploring the antiques and eating more of the buffalo raised in the corral behind the blacksmith shop.
Back in Crawford, a hot wind was building from the wrong direction, and the road wound ominously back up as far as I could see, now every touring cyclist’s nightmare. Before long, I was pedaling hard to gain a mere four miles an hour, hunched over the handlebars, drenched in sweat and saying to myself in a sort of chant, “I don’t quit. I don’t quit. I don’t quit.” Quit what, exactly? Well, therein lies a fool’s tale.
In 2005, my wife, Tammy, and I, walked 1,000 miles in 40 days around Nebraska to raise $150,000 for a new homeless shelter in North Platte, a project necessitated by the inadequacies of the old converted restaurant we’d been using since 1994. In 2007, I made a foam and fiberglass raft and poled it for 14 days on the Platte River from Wyoming to Iowa, raising $18,000 more.
This time, I was riding my bicycle to a preselected restaurant in each of Nebraska’s 93 counties, a projected voyage of 3,100 miles in 31 days. In addition to gifts from supportive friends in and around North Platte, each restaurant would provide one meal and think of some way to support the trip. Tammy and my friend, Tandy, would take turns driving my borrowed support vehicle, taking pictures, interviewing restaurant owners and making sure I ate and drank enough. It was all a bit audacious, since I’m not really a bicyclist. Still, there I was 13 days into my ride, struggling as I aimed for Alliance, the wind increasing in strength out of the southwest.