Thursday, September 24, 2009
Sunset Motel & RV Park, Alliance, NE: Sept 20-23
We had planned to travel from Rapid City to the Boulder area with 3 stops, but after examining the map, we discovered if we did it in two longish (for us that means 170 miles) days, we could spend the first night in Alliance at a Passport America park and finally get to see Carhenge, something that had been "on our list" for many years. We planned to stay 3 nights, visiting Carhenge one day and Chimney Rock, about 50 miles south, the second day. However, the weather continued to be awful, with much wind & rain, so we have opted for yet another day. Hopefully, we will leave tomorrow.We were a bit worried about this RV park since we read a really negative review of it online that said there were hundreds of incredibly loud trains each night, plus a loud garbage truck. In fact, we only paid for two nights to start with. We found minimal train noise, no whistles just a bit of rumbling, some fairly minimal highway noise, none of it louder than our RV furnace. The cats love the small trees full of birds that are near our spot. We were happy to stay here two more nights and avoid the bad weather and do more sightseeing.
Carhenge was all we expected it to be -- but different. Carhenge was built by Jim Reinders, who was captivated by Stonehenge when he called London home in the 1970s. He planned the project as a memorial to his father, and his family enthusiastically agreed to help. Built in the summer of 1987, the schedule involved 7 8-hour days of work, utilizing a backhoe & a forklift and 12 relatives. They positioned 38 cars in accordance with Stonehenge's modern appearance. The cars, including several classic Cadillacs, an AMC Gremlin & a Willys pickup, were painted battleship gray. For some reason, I had pictured the cars in color, but the gray was quite stunning. The day we visited, the sky was full of clouds with blue showing through and it was an awesome setting -- a great day to visit. They say about 80,000 people visit Carhenge each year, just slightly fewer than the number that visit Chaco. It brings a lot of tourist money to this small town. We had wished for cooler temps but what we got was a lot cooler than we wanted. We are never satisfied!! The fierce wind and rain made us happy to not be traveling.
Alliance turned out to be a more pleasant little town than we had expected. The historic downtown area was still paved in brick, which is great for ambiance but rough on vehicles. There are a number of interesting buildings. 
In Central Park, constructed in the 1930s by the CCC & WPA, there is a fountain, created in 1935 and listed on the Natl Register of Historic Places, which has multi-colored light displays nightly, weather permitting. We enjoyed watching it and were joined by a local fellow who told us many items of "local color".
Chimney Rock, about 50 miles southwest of Alliance, was a landmark for nearly half a million westbound travelers on the Oregon, California, Mormon Pioneer and Pony Express Trails in the early to mid-1800s. It was mentioned in many journals of the time. Many travelers etched their names in the structure; however, the fragile outer layers soon wore away, and names rarely lasted longer than a few days. The central shaft is topped with very hard sandstone, so the surrounding softer layers have eroded away, leaving a majestic monument that can be seen for miles. It signaled the end of the boring plains and the beginning of the very difficult mountainous area that remained for these travelers.
While walking around town, we found out there was a JV volleyball tournament here Tuesday afternoon, so we timed our outing so we could attend that. We hadn't been to a college game in years and wanted to see how the JV players did. As you may know, Nebraska has long been a finalist/winner of the NCAA Women's Volleyball tournament, and when you see the level of play at the JV (mostly sophomores with one junior) level, you can understand why. Alliance played two nearby towns and were clearly the better team. It was quite enjoyable to watch and we learned there had been some major changes in scoring since we had last watched a game.# posted by Doug and Willie @ 9:57 PM 
