And Vice-Versa

Every road heading east or north out of Lincoln leads to Omaha and....

On returning to the capital today from a party in the city last night I took a bit of a detour, 84th street through Papillion and down to as near the Platte River as I was legally allowed.  I was somewhat surprised to find a basically clean line between country and suburb at Capehart Rd exactly ten miles south of Dodge, and also not the least bit surprised but still disappointed to find an almost complete lack of public access to the Platte.  all of it being in the hands of either farmers, which I can deal with, or gated communities for wealthy elite, which ticks me off rather more. 

I stopped in the hamlet of South Bend to walk around a bit.  It was chilly and gray, and the gothic combination of damp dreary air dead corn and borderline ghost town was too much to resist.  There was in particular a dirt track that slanted out of the village along the UP railroad before ending at nothing.  Whether this used to be a proper road, a 1920's 'auto trail' or something I don't know.  It did provide access to a hike of some light legal tresspassing.  Over the railroad into a copse of trees to a rise over the Platte.  There were ice floes there even though it wasn't all that cold, with a fog over the water even though it wasn't foggy, and the effect was positively marine though I knew it was only the Platte.  Save for the wind it was preternaturally perfect hangover weather, being chilly but not fridgid and blessedly free of the evil evil sun.   I had a phone camera but took no pictures. 

On a related note, I just wanted to say that while 'The Lion King' is obviously a huge common touchstone for my generation, Elton John's soundtrack for the film is nothing but the most hellishly overwrought pseudo-spritural pile of lifeless garbage to ever be recorded. Anyone who displays even so much as a joking appreciation for that noxious shit is an extremely perverse and moralless person, just waiting for some demagogue to inspire them into the atrocities they have always wanted to commit in their blackest of hearts.  At least play some "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" instead of anything by the anthropomorphized 'Bed Bath & Beyond" that the shell of that man became.  Yeesh.