September 14, 2014. North by Northwest - Eugene T. Mahoney State Park, Ashland, NE

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September 14, 2014.  You remember the great Alfred Hitchcock movie, North by Northwest, don't you?  It starred Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason.  The movie is a tale of mistaken identity, with an innocent man chased across the United States by foreign spies who want to stop his interference with their plans to smuggle microfilm containing government secrets.  The story begins in New York City and ends at Mount Rushmore, hence the title, North by Northwest.  North by northwest is likewise our current direction of travel.  We are driving toward Mount Rushmore, but have no plans to go there.  We've been there several times and the faces never change.  I don't expect they will change for us on this trip, either. 

We left home about 10:00 AM today and drove the 200-plus miles to Eugene T. Mahoney State Park, near Ashland, midway between Omaha and Lincoln.  It is one of the nicest state parks we've found.  The grounds are clean and well landscaped.  It is next to the Strategic Air and Space Museum, a facility we plan to tour tomorrow.  We may stay here several days.  It is nice enough that we don't want to leave. 

So we begin another journey in Harvey.  We have had a couple of shortened or missed trips since this time last year.  We plan to be out nearly six weeks in total.  We will be in the western United States until October 7.  We will return home for 4-5 days, then depart again East by Northeast, probably to upstate New York, Vermont and other parts of New England.  We plan to return home from that leg of the trip the last few days in October.

Here we go again.  Life is good.