Day 62, Fremont, Nebraska

 

Day 62, Fremont, Nebraska

    I packed my wet tent and sleeping bag onto my bike trailer and cycled towards Fremont, Nebraska.  I comforted myself with the knowledge that there was a place which served breakfast in Beemer.  It was a 10 mile ride, but I figured by the time I go there I would have earned the calories that the breakfast would entail. 

    The Beemer café was packed when I arrived and it was good to be sitting among human beings again.  The conversations around me had to do with anxieties over falling soy prices and raising the serious question if it was worth while farming at all.  The waitress, Mary, gave me a very detailed history of the community (though I had not asked her for this).   Like many of the communities I had passed along the way, she that the town might not able to hold on to the young adults who were graduating from high school. 

     Though I really enjoyed the wonderful food with high caloric content, as well as the air conditioned environment and the sociable waitress, I realized that I must be on my way.  This was the first hot day (90 degrees) I had experienced.  I am grateful that I mailed my down winter coat and winter clothes (necessary in Wyoming) back home to Denise.  They seemed very foreign to me now.

      I had reached the end of the cowboy trail and my only options were the highway or the country roads (which my GPS really wanted for me to take).  The highways were hot, smelly, and scary.  The country roads were loose gravel and very difficult for cycling.  I opted for the country road and was able to see some of the beautiful rolling hills which one can encounter in eastern Nebraska.

      After 7 miles on the gravel road, my tire went flat (again).  I wheeled my bike to shady spot and began the work of changing the inner tube.  After 8 or 10 times I have become very efficient at this task and able to do this in less than 15 minutes.

      When I was completed I decided that since I was in a very comfortable, quiet, and shady spot that it would be a good opportunity to call my mother.  When I called her number there was no one in, so I left her a message.  Upon completion of my message I heard a voice behind me announce, “You have picked a very strange spot from which to call your mother.”  I turned around and saw a couple in their 70s stroll had walked up behind me.  “Are you having trouble?” they asked with a pastoral tone in their voice.  I informed them that I had just changed a tire and I was going on my way.  They inquired as to what I was doing and I informed them that I was cycling across the country.  They asked what I did when I was not cycling, and I replied that I was a priest in Massachusetts.  They introduced themselves as Bob and Carol Thompson and added that they were Jehovah’s Witnesses, but it was too hot a day for evangelizing.

     I asked what was growing in the fields which surrounded us.  I was informed that it was soybeans which the couple had grown on this place for 60 years.  They had retired the year before and were leasing the land to someone else who they felt were doing a poor job of it.  “We live around the bend” the woman informed me. “Would you like to come in for a sandwich?”  I thanked them, and informed them that I had 35 more miles to go and someone waiting for me in Fremont.

     I cycled away a bit disappointed to not have had an opportunity to break bread with them.  The gravel road seemed too treacherous, so I decided to deal with the unpleasantness of the highway.  As I approached the village of Scribner, Nebraska I heard my phone ping indicating that I had a text message.  It was my host informing me that another violent storm was on its way.  I turned around and saw a black ominous cloud approaching us with sinister motives.  I texted him back and said that yes, this would be very nice and went into the gas station to procure a Popsicle.

   Twenty minutes later, Peter Hunt arrived in a pickup to drive me and my stuff the remaining20 miles to their lovely home in Fremont.  I am very grateful for their intervention in that the flat tire and gravel road had delayed me by two hours.  Peter and Jan Hunt were wonderful hosts.  They had a basement apartment set up for me when I arrived and it was such a delight to have shower, dry out my stuff, and chat with them over pizza.

    Both of them are health professionals (Peter is physician assistant and Jan is a registered nurse).  We spoke of the current state of health care as well as our concern for the economic stability of the next generation.  They have son who is serving in army and a daughter who is a state police officer in western Nebraska.   I am so very grateful for the kindness and encouragement they offered me as I continued on my journey.