When I was in college, I first became acquainted with the phrase, “Road trip!” To this day those two words still stir up excitement as they mean I’ll be off on an adventure, sometimes just a short jaunt, and at others a multi-day trip.

Friday was a road trip day to a part of southwest Nebraska I hadn’t been to. One of my freelance assignments for a farm magazine I write for took me to Wauneta for an interview. The Frenchman Valley is one of those hidden Nebraska gems that few take the time to explore, but after my drive I am glad I was there.

I lucked out and while the weather was cold and crisp, after three days of fog and mist, the sun shone brightly, accenting the last of the fall colors. The family I was set to interview live north and slightly east of Wauneta. Throughout the area there are canyons, and I was forewarned that the county had been doing some work close to their place.

“What kind of vehicle do you drive?” they asked. When I responded that I had a Jeep with four-wheeldrive I detected a sense of relief in the response. When we made the appointment, no one was sure how much moisture might come with the cold snap and fourwheel-drive meant I would be able to navigate any ruts or slick spots on their lane.

The sunny weather was a welcome turn as there was a break from school that day, one of the reasons for the interview so I could get family photos. With the interview and photos finished, I headed back to Wauneta to meet a friend for lunch.

This time I was meeting a fellow Nebraska IFYE who had been on the same international cultural exchange I went on to Germany. Hank, however had been a couple of decades ahead of me, but once an IFYE always an

Cont. Page 8 IFYE and he was happy to share travel stories and catch up with what was going on at our place and with the other Nebraska IFYEs.

The lunch crowd drifted in as we settled in to savor our soup and before we knew it the banter was going back and forth between Hank and the locals. Talk focused on the Nebraska volleyball game set for that evening and the lament that it wasn’t on TV. Then it shifted to which channel on TV the Husker football game would be the next day. Finally, there was speculation on how the local Wauneta-Palisade girls would fare in the district volleyball final Saturday afternoon at Overton.

Following lunch, I went with Hank to the Wauneta Care and Therapy Center to visit his brother, Dale, who had also been an IFYE. I was thankful a recent series of COVID cases had subsided so we could go visit in person. Our hour went swiftly as we traded photos back and forth on our phones and again caught up on family and friends.

As I left for my two-hour drive back to Lexington the late afternoon sun was playing on the trees as I traveled up Frenchman Creek and into the Republican River Valley. It’s a route not many travelers take these days, but the lingering fall colors made the trip well worth it.

Turning north at Arapahoe for a more familiar route I thought of the Robert Frost poem, “The Road Not Taken.” For this fall afternoon I was grateful for solo trip through the canyons and tablelands of Southwest Nebraska, and the lines, “Two roads diverged in the wood (or in my case canyon) and I – I took the one less traveled by.”