Second Long Hall - Part 2

Adams Co. - Hastings

So...after we left the metropolis of St. Paul, we headed down to Hastings for the Adams County Fairfest! We set up shop next to the Jr. Leader's Food Stand and the Carnival - a perfect location to sell tickets besides the horrible Nebraska humidity!! About an hour after setting up, Lil' Green showed up to help support the Nebraska 4-H Foundation and boost ticket sales! The little kids just loved him!

After selling tickets, we hurried on over to the grand stand to watch one of our favorite country singers - Eric Church! The concert was AMAZING!!! We both just loved it!

Once the concert was over, we stopped and got some grub then began our long journey to Ogallala as our halfway point for the night! Lets just say, that was 4 long hours of radio karaoke! :) We arrived at our hotel at 1:30 AM mountain standard time! Thank goodness we made reservations a month ago as it was completely full! But...we still had a problem! After getting our keys, we went to our room and swiped the key card all to see a red light flashing! Ran back down to the front desk, she recoded the key, and we tried opening our door again. Once again, a red flashing light. All of a sudden, the desk worker realized that someone was already occupying the room! We didn't know what to do at this point! To our relief, there was a reservation that had not checked in yet! Finally, we managed to get some shut eye by 2 AM MST!

Box Butte Co. - Alliance

After a short night sleep, we left our hotel by 7 AM and headed to Alliance for the Heritage Day's Parade! We took a detour around Lake McConaughy on highway 92 - beautiful! The Lake was so full! And all of the pastures looked extremely green due to all of the rain the past couple of months! The entire way up to Alliance, we found ourselves saying "OO! Look at that!" and "Wow! It's so pretty!" - if you couldn't tell, we enjoyed the ride thoroughly!

Once in Alliance, we lined up for the parade along with several Box Butte County 4-Hers! They had a blast handing out candy to children along the parade route! After the parade, we headed to downtown Alliance amongst the Heritage Day's vendors. Box Butte County was very organized and had several families take shifts selling tickets, making our job easy! :) Thanks! This also allowed us to take time to site see!


Deb Kraenow, Box Butte County Affiliate, lent us her car to go see the infamous Carhenge! Did you know that Carhenge attracts more than 87,000 visitors a year?!? Crazy! We also discovered the Knight Museum and Sandhills Center. What a beautiful place! This museum just opened up in March 2010! We were so fascinated by the amount of items and exhibits they had about Box Butte County's heritage! We highly recommend visiting this diamond in the rough! Also a plus...free admission! Thanks Deb for everything!

We spent the night in Sidney at Molly's family friend Kyle's place. We had so much fun! Thanks Kyle and Alex!


Gage Co. - Beatrice

The next morning, we began our LONG drive literally across the state to Beatrice for the Gage County Fair! 6 hours plus one for the time change = 7 hours! :) We enjoyed every minute of it! Good quality time with the 4-H Truck! haha!

Gage County has over 600 4-H members! We were both very impressed with the variety and quality of all of the 4-H Projects! That night, was the last night of the Gage County Fair. We had the perfect location to sell tickets right next to the 4-H Exhibit building! We were able to catch all of the 4-Hers and parents as they came to pick up their 4-H projects! It was a gorgeous night out - no bugs, no humidity, and cool! Thank you Gage County for everything!

Second Long Hall - Part 1

Have you missed us?! We had Monday and Tuesday off this week and what did we do? We both went to our own county fairs! We are spending our entire summer at fairs and on our time off we go to fairs! What can we say… we’re fair junkies! Reese went back to Leon, Iowa for the Decatur County Fair and Molly went to Minden for the Kearney County Fair!

Kearney Co. Fair

On Wednesday Reese drove back to Lincoln, took care of business in the office and climbed in the truck for another long haul. After a short stop at our apartments to water very thirsty houseplants and tomatoes Reese hit the lovely I-80 and headed to the Kearney County Fair!

Reese met up with Molly at the fairgrounds in Minden and set up shop beside the Minden Chamber of Commerce’s Free BBQ. It was an excellent location with all the people lining up for the meal right beside the truck. After the meal they also had a ventriloquist for entertainment so people hung around!

We had a great group of CWF 4-Hers working to raise money to go to Washington, D.C. among other places next year and they did a fabulous job working hour-long shifts! A few kids would stay at the booth with us and then groups would go out and work the crowds all over the fairgrounds selling tickets! We sold the most tickets so far here and were very excited with the results! Thank you Kearney County and Rhonda, you are simply amazing!

Butler Co. Fair

On Thursday we spent the day at the lake near North Bend with our friend Kelli! It was a relaxing day at the lake and river, swimming, getting nice tans and even kayaking! We had a blast, but couldn’t wait until we reached the Butler County Fair in David City!

The Butler County 4-Hers were great hosts! We enjoyed their company! They even gave us 2010 Butler County 4-H shirts. The theme this year was “Dancing with the Steers!” – how clever!

We had a great location next to the Tasting Nebraska barn and by the Grand Stand. Tasting Nebraska brought in several Nebraska wineries and food vendors from across the area for a large food extravaganza for the community!

Even though the night was hot and humid we had a successful evening and enjoyed the fun, fair atmosphere. Thanks Butler County and Katie for the hospitality!

After we left David City, we headed down highway 92 towards Farwell at our friend Mel’s house for a good nights sleep!

Howard Co. Fair

On Friday morning, we traveled to the lovely town of St. Paul for the Howard County Fair. The 4-H and FFA beef show was in progress so we managed to set up camp next to the livestock barn.

So far, we are voting Howard County as the BEST FAIR FOOD ever! Reese had a yummy roast beef sandwhich and strawberry rhubarb pie and Molly had super nachos and a “Cyclone Mixer” ice cream.

It has been a much cooler day here than last evening at Butler County. We would like to give a shout out to Melinda Rathman “Howard County resident” for helping us today! We enjoyed her company!

Howard County has excellent facilities and a well organized fairgrounds. We loved how the 4-H Exhibits were connected to the livestock arena allowing easy access for fair goers. Thank you Howard County for an awesome day!

Our First Long Stretch - Part 2

Cruise Night/Show 'n Shine - Kearney, NE

On Saturday, July 17th, we made our way over to Kearney for the Show 'n Shine during the Cruise Night Festivities at 9 am. After check-in, we met up with the Buffalo County CWF 4-Hers and parked outside of Yanda's Music Store on the Bricks in Downtown Kearney.

It was a beautiful morning, but started to get toasty as the sun rose higher into the sky! Lets just say that Molly got a pretty nice sunburn! :) We had an amazing parking spot right in the middle of Central Avenue among the several hundreds of classic cars! We sold several tickets thanks to the enthusiastic 4-Hers! We spent all day at the Show 'n Shine until 4pm when we headed over to Builders Warehouse to support Buffalo County's Udder Club (dairy club) while they sold ice cream!

We then headed back to Downtown Kearney where we participated in the Cruise Night parade down Central Avenue. Before we called it a night, we cruised up and down 2nd Avenue and Hwy 30 with the rest of the classic cars! The 4-H Truck sure did get a lot of publicity that evening! What an experience! Thanks Buffalo County for this opportunity!




Hall County Fair - Grand Island, NE

The next morning, we headed to Grand Island at the new home for the Nebraska State Fair for the Hall County Fair! There were several great families that helped us sell tickets throughout the day! We were first set up next to the 4-H Livestock building were the Round Robin Livestock competition was being held.

Later in the afternoon, Hall County had a Truck/Tractor pull that brought in lots of people who were interested in buying raffle tickets! We had a successful turnout and wish Hall County the best of luck with the rest of their summer!

Our First Long Stretch - Part 1

This blog is a lot longer than what they have been in the past because we’re getting to the heart of fair season… each town is its own little adventure though, read all the way through! Thanks!

Webster Co. Fair- Bladen, NE

We left the office about noon on Thursday, July 15 and headed down the scenic Highway of 136 to Riverton to drop Reese off, leaving Molly all by her lonesome for the evening. (Reese went to the Hall County Fair to see Merle Haggard in concert with her boyfriend Ben. It was great!

Molly took a gravel road to Highway 4 and arrived in Bladen about 4 p.m. She met with the Extension Assistant Liz and set up camp next to the Pork BBQ. Webster County was so well organized with 4-Hers arriving in shifts every half an hour to sell tickets bringing fresh spunk and motivation!

We sold several tickets that night and earlier in the day 4-Hers went around selling tickets also, encouraging people to come see the truck that night. The Junior Leaders also sponsored a boot scramble for kids before the rodeo making the evening hectic for the group! We commend the youth for staying cool under the pressure and the energy they brought selling tickets! This was a great group of kids… we see excellent leaders for our future coming out of Webster County!

Frontier Co. Fair- Stockville, NE

The next morning we met in Holdrege and somehow managed to dress the same. That just goes to show that we spend too much time together and think alike a lot! Everyone asked if we always dressed to match! :)

This was both of our first time in Frontier County and we fell in love! It was beautiful! It was a county of contrast with pastures full of steep hills and canyons next to pivots of corn and wheat! If you have never been, take the time and visit, it’s breathtaking!

We took Highway 23 to Farnam and took a county road to connect to Highway 18. Road 408 was our connection and we meet everything from a farmer in pickup and harvest crew to a maintainer! We made great time and arrived in Stockville over an hour early so we decided to sightsee.

We were greeted with a population sign of 36, welcoming us to the smallest county seat in Nebraska! It only took about 10 minutes to see the town but as we were reading a historical marker we decided to check out the Medicine Creek it talked about. Apparently it was used as a transportation and trade route from Ft. McPherson!

Being the farm girls we are we decided to go “exploring” like we did as kids and headed down into the creek by a bridge! Reese has a rock collection (odd yes!) and she wanted a rock from the creek so she headed down to the water and stepped onto what she thought was sand… as it turned out it was mud and she sank past her ankles! She got a rock but spent a long time attempting to clean the mud out from between her toes!

We then went into Curtis, about 10 miles away, and got gas at the Ag Valley Convenience Store, our first gas up NOT at a Casey’s! When we were done we headed back to Stockville and arrived at the Frontier County Fair. The Extension Educator Barb warned us that Stockville was the smallest county seat in the state but she promised that it “came to life” for county fair and she was right!

We sold several tickets and had some very energetic girls who ran all over the fairgrounds selling tickets! We loved Barb, she was a great salesperson and was such a joy to work with! She even got us shaved ice, Molly got Strawberry Daiquiri flavored and Reese got half Green Apple half Tigers Blood! They came with whipped cream and a gummy bear on top!!! Thanks for everything Barb, you where phenomenal!

Nuckolls County Fair

Nuckolls County Fair- Nelson, NE

We had a very scenic drive to Nelson on Tuesday afternoon on Hwy. 77 and Hwy. 136. It was felt great to be out of the city and off the interstate! We stopped for gas at Casey's in Beatrice and enjoyed the windy Highway 136 to Nelson.

When we got to the fairgrounds we were greeted with a 4-H flag flying high and clovers painted on the road, leading us to the entry gate! The Nuckolls County fair grounds were very nice with well maintained buildings and plenty of friendly folks!

We set up shop between two concession stands and caught the rodeo crowd. Unfortunately our tent broke but there was a well placed shade tree that provided us with some relief in the 95 degree weather! Hopefully we get it fixed soon!

We headed back to Lincoln for the night and decided to take a short cut through Henderson to the interstate from Highway 6... when they say via county road, they mean it! We took a gravel road that came to a T in the middle of some daunting corn fields... luckily it just jogged a little and we ended up back on a paved road! It was an adventurous few miles that's for sure!

The interstate was a lot less eventful and before we knew it we were pulling into the parking garage after another successful evening on the road! Thanks Nuckolls County!

Boone County Fair

On Sunday, July 11th, we headed to Albion, NE to attend the Boone County Fair. We arrived an hour early, so we stopped at The Boot Barn and then the Junction Cafe for a bite to eat. Yummy!

Once we arrived at the fairgrounds, we lined up for the Boone County Fair Parade. We had the privilege of towing the Boone County Jr. Leaders 4-H group and also the Boone County 4-H King and Queen! The parade was very impressive! It lasted over an hour and a half and had lots of creative floats, shiny vehicles, tractors, and even animals! The parade route was different than what we've been on before as it zig-zag'ed around the town to the nursing homes allowing the older generations to enjoy the event!

We set up shop at the 4-H Building and then moved to the Team Penning Contest were we sold most of our tickets! We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Albion and hope to return some day! Thank you Boone County!

Clay County Fair

On Saturday, July 10th, Reese and Molly headed to Clay Center for the Clay County Fair. We enjoyed the scenic Highway 6 along the way! It was beautiful weather that evening creating perfect conditions for selling tickets!

We were there for the Figure 8 races which brought several people out to the Clay County Fairgrounds. They had to walk right past the 4-H Truck to get into the races. The loud cars made talking to people maybe a little difficult, but still enjoyable!

We had several comical guest buyers towards the end of the evening that made our night more entertaining!

Thank you Clay County residents for making our trip a successful one! Also, we would like to thank the Nunnenkamp family for opening up their home to us!

Franklin County Fair

Franklin County CWF members selling tickets!

Reese & Molly's first funnel cake of the summer!

The 4-H Truck's first wash of the summer!

WooWho! Fair season has officially started! The Franklin County Fair, in Franklin, NE, is one of the earliest fairs in Nebraska! What a great way to start our Fair Journey!

Our day started by taking the 4-H Truck for a wash! We kind of looked at it as the Truck's first haircut! :)

Our next stop, was to a local Midwest Ford Dealer. We were VERY impressed by their knowledge and service about the 2010 Ford F150. Thank you!

Finally, we headed "On the Road to Excellence" to Franklin, NE to the County Fair! We got to talk with Franklin County residents from Franklin, Naponee, Macon, and Riverton. We even met a few vacationers from Iowa who bought tickets!

We were set up outside by the entrance to the Mud Drags which was sponsored by the local Citizen Washington Focus (CWF) group. These 4-H members are raising money to attend a leadership conference in Washington D.C. next summer. The Mud drags is one of their main fundraisers, and it attracts a lot of people from the area. We enjoyed working with this entertaining group that helped sell tickets!

As we were leaving, we found it funny that the only way to the exit was to drive through the center of loud, flashing carnival rides and groups of people! We nosed along in the 4-H Truck while waving to people as they moved. Then we jammed out to the SYNC technology and made our way to Molly's farm in Minden! The last song on our playlist just happened to be Chris Ledoux's 'County Fair,' which we thought was appropriate for the occasion - our FIRST county fair! Thank you Franklin County for a great start! :)