The "home base" town for the 2003 "Tour
Nebraska" was Norfolk, pronounced "Nor-fork"
by the natives (don't ask). The tour started from here on both days.
That made it convenient because you didn't have to check in and out of
different motels each day. Registration was held at the Ramada Inn
on the Friday evening prior to the tour. The rest of the evening
you were on your own to visit, sight see, eat, etc. Not much
partying going on because the tour began the next morning at 6:30 AM!
The tour participants gathered at the Wal-Mart store in
Norfolk at 6:30 AM Saturday morning for a drivers' meeting. The
vehicles where divided into two groups - "red" and
"blue". During registration the evening before, each
participant was given a red or blue placard which was placed inside the
front windshield of their vehicle. The reason for the two groups was
to provide a bit of a buffer between the two groups of vehicles, as a line
of 250 cars can present a few problems when traveling in a pack. The
two groups alternated which one went first on each of the two days.
I was in the red group, so we headed out first. The
"rules of the road" are:
At 7:00 AM we headed out. It was about two hours to
our first rest stop.
webmaster@pattson.com
