July 5 Day 4 Tuesday, Ashland, NE to Ogallala, NE

We are now 1080 miles from Nashville and 2,400 ft higher elevation. We were climbing all day. It means we are getting close to the Rocky Mountains. No new state today but tomorrow we enter Wyoming. Setting out on I-80 after a couple of hours we switched to US30, the Lincoln Highway. This road is famous for a couple of reasons. First, it was the first transcontinental highway completed in 1913 going from New York to San Francisco. Secondly, it was the road my family and I took in our Studebaker, 61 years ago almost to the day.

 

My father kept a log and wrote “During the day it was getting very hot in the car and at Wahoo we had persuaded the local cold storage plant to sell us some dry ice. Somewhere we’d heard that if wrapped up on the car floor it would keep the air cool. The attendant said quite frankly he was sure it wouldn’t do any good and might be dangerous due to the gas it forms as it evaporates. He was right it didn’t do any good, and the fumes it gives off are unpleasant. The remains were defrosted in our refrigerator as we had run out of ice. Here it froze everything solid including four cans of beer. Next day we still hadn’t found ice but the frozen beer served us well and nothing spoiled. At Ogalla we bought one of the car coolers we were beginning to see in increasing numbers. A large cylinder mounted on the right hand door, they cool by evaporation of water. It turned out to be a good investment and we were much more comfortable.”  In the photo you can see the cooler hanging on the window of the car. After our trip it sat in our garage in Toronto for the next 35 years.