Keeping your eyes open on American roads reveals so much of the rich countryside. Passing through small town America,  we find extremely interesting..there is always something new, virtually in every town. In Australia you can travel the countryside for hundreds of miles and see nothing but bush and kangaroos. That may be appealing to some, but travel hundreds of miles in the mid west of USA and you will see dozens and dozens of small towns, all sporting their own character and colourful murals.

We are heading north from Great Bend to northern Nebraska today and we're off before sunrise. Great Bend is a middle sized town on the plains of western Kansas. It is wheat country. Despite the dry conditions, crops are looking pretty good. Heading north across the Kansas border to Nebraska, the small town of Alma has a railway depot. It's in places like this that you find some ancient American locomotives lurking....mainly a mix of old EMD's. They are being recycled and put back to work almost 50 years after they were built. Pushing north into Nebraska we arrive at Elm Creek and we watch some superfreighters pass....10 or 20,000 tonners! This is the UP mainline cris crossing southern Nebraska. Today we are expecting storms to break out across NE Nebraska.

The set up is a bit unusual with the dryline pushing up from Colorado. There's plenty of moisture but a strong cap is in place. We continue NE towards Osceola where we spot more trains but no storms.....so we head NW towards O'Neill, where a few storms have broken out along the dryline. We spot Sean Casey's TIV hiding in the bushes east of O'Neill and stop for a chat. Sean has graciously promised an interview to be presented at the Australian Severe Weather Conference in Canberra in 2011, but with storms kicking up to our west we have more immediate things to attend to and arrange to catch up soon. Even here along the dryline the storms are struggling to break the cap...it's hot and it;'s been a long day, but we tag onto a small storm developing just east of O'Neill. Amazingly this very narrow updraft multicell rotates constrained by the stability of the cap and the stretching updraft.

As the sun sets and the heating falls away the cap closes shut again, leaving an orphan anvil to wallow about over O'Neill. It's getting late and we are dead tired...a couple of big cells have gone off over South Dakota, but we are finished for the day and head for our hotel.

No mucking about here! South Nebraska, Elm Creek. A quad of UP locos form a double stack eastbound...not to mention the 2 pushers on the rear.

High standard main line near Elm Creek

BNSF ethanol train, Broken Bow

Interesting loco lineup, Alma

Hiding loco, Alma. It's amazing what you find behind silos in Nebraska.

State line...Kansas and Nebraska

Road hogs near Alma...sorry, escaped road calves

Nebraska Sandhills road

Interesting patterns in the grass, Nebraska Sandhills

Nebraska Central loco sneaking past Osceola, NE

Cheap transport, Osceola (360cc engine)

Another lurking loco, Shelby

Ethanol train approaching Shelby

Shelby

Northeast Nebraska landscape

Nebraska shed

Suffer MACCA addicts!!!!!

Obviously a Christmas present!!

The cap attempting to break, NW of Neligh

TIV heading west at O'Neill, NE

One of the narrowest updrafts to a storm that we've seen...and it was rotating! O'Neill, NE

Remarkable rotating updraft (mini LP!!), O'Neill.

The updraft kept putting out mid level funnels

Orphan anvil and shadow, O'Neill