NEBRASKA

I only meant to kill twenty minutes on a Nebraska downtown street, and I figured a small bookstore…

The storefront barely stands out, just a modest suite on an ordinary Nebraska street that most drivers pass…

The building looked ordinary from the street, the kind of place you drive past a hundred times without…

Out on a flat western Nebraska highway, a thin spire pokes up from the horizon, and it barely…

The sign out front barely hinted at what waited inside. I only wanted something cold on a quiet…

The plan was simple: find something sweet on a quiet drive through southeast Nebraska and keep moving. Then…

The door had a hand-lettered sign and a bell that jingled way too loud. I only stopped in…

The plan was simple: stretch the legs, grab a snack, and get back on the highway through southeast…

Some of the best meals in Nebraska start with a plain building and a parking lot full of…

Some of the best surprises in Nebraska hide behind ordinary doors, and this one smells like coal smoke….

Some of the best fall days in Nebraska start with a wrong turn onto a gravel road and…

The first clue is usually a small sign you have passed a hundred times without reading. Then you…

Some of the best afternoons in Nebraska start with a plain storefront and a hunch. You push open…

Nobody plans a whole Saturday around a gravel turnoff and a hand-painted apple sign, but in Nebraska that…

The first clue was the smell of garlic rice drifting across a plain parking lot, and it was…

The plan was just a long drive through northern Nebraska with a sack of gas station snacks and…

Nebraska has a habit of hiding big surprises behind plain storefronts. A quick stop for a lamp can…

The building doesn’t look like much from the road, and that turns out to be half the fun….

Some buildings keep their stories quiet until you walk through the front door. In Nebraska, one redbrick hotel…

When the big craft chain locked its doors for good, a lot of Nebraska sewers figured that was…

Some of the best meals start with an empty stomach and no real plan. A low building with…

I pulled off a two-lane road in northwest Nebraska expecting a quick leg stretch and a glance at…

The plan was a quick detour off the interstate, maybe twenty minutes to stretch our legs before getting…

A quick stop to stretch our legs in southeast Nebraska turned into a whole afternoon under some of…

The gravel kept going long after the pavement gave up, and nothing on the horizon hinted at anything…

The plan was nothing bigger than stretching my legs after a long drive across Nebraska. A paved path,…

The first time I pulled over at a dim storefront on a dark Nebraska morning, all I wanted…

The two-lane highway looked like any other stretch of southeast Nebraska, all fence posts and farm fields, until…

The parking lot gave nothing away, just a row of plain storefronts and a quiet door in eastern…

A gravel-dusted parking lot, a screen door, and a glass case holding six kinds of pie. That combination…

I pulled off a two-lane highway in northern Nebraska expecting a quiet historical marker and a stretch of…

Some of the best food in Nebraska comes out of buildings you would drive past a hundred times…

Some buildings in Nebraska hide their best parts underground. From the parking deck, this one looks like an…

Some of the best stops in Nebraska don’t announce themselves with a big sign or a parking lot…

A gravel pull-off in Nebraska does not look like much at four in the afternoon. Wait until an…

A beige industrial building on the west edge of a Nebraska city looks like a place that ships…

A brick building on a quiet side street in Nebraska can hold more Plains tribe history than an…

A wrong turn off a county highway in Nebraska can end at a gravel lot, a row of…

Somewhere out in western Nebraska, past the last streetlight and a whole lot of grass, there’s a big…

Gregorian chants drifting across a Nebraska parking lot is not what most people expect on the way to…

The gravel crunches, a gate swings open, and suddenly there are fuzzy heads swiveling your way like you…

Some of the best stops in Nebraska sit behind doors you’d never think to open. A plain strip…

Some buildings in Nebraska give away nothing from the sidewalk. Brick, tall windows, a loading dock that hasn’t…

The gravel road looked like every other gravel road in Nebraska, right up until a hand-lettered sign for…

Driving western Nebraska, you get used to the horizon doing most of the talking. Then the road drops…

Somewhere between the interstate exits and the grain trucks of western Nebraska, there’s a storefront that looks like…

Driving the long stretch of Highway 20 across northwestern Nebraska, you pass a low brick building with a…

Some of the best food in Nebraska hides behind a plain brick wall and a narrow doorway you’d…

Driving across Nebraska, you get used to a horizon that never seems to do much. Then a plain…

Some of the biggest meals in Nebraska come out of buildings you would drive past without a second…

I had been driving a two-lane Nebraska highway long enough to stop expecting anything but grass when a…

The last stretch of road turns to dirt, and you start wondering if the map is playing a…

Some mornings in Nebraska, the smell of something baking hits you before you even find the door. That…

The smell hits first: old wood, cold metal, a little dust. Somewhere past the third row of booths…

I pulled off a two-lane Nebraska highway because a low warehouse with a big parking lot looked like…

Somewhere north of the Niobrara River, the pavement runs out of things to look at and then suddenly…

Driving across Nebraska, you get used to the horizon doing very little. Then something enormous appears over the…

The first cold snap hits Nebraska and suddenly a flatbed wagon full of straw sounds like the best…

Pull off a Nebraska highway into almost any county seat and you’ll spot a long, low building with…

There’s a plain brick building in Nebraska that looks like every other old storefront on a small-town main…

The gravel road in eastern Nebraska doesn’t promise much, just fence line and pasture and the kind of…

Southwestern Nebraska has a way of hiding big stories behind small buildings. I pulled off a gravel-shouldered road…

There’s a particular kind of hunger that hits about an hour into a drive through southeast Nebraska, when…

Half the best meals in Nebraska hide behind doors that need a coat of paint. You pull into…

The last paved road runs out, and then it’s just washboard gravel, cattle, and grass taller than your…

There’s a brick building in south central Nebraska where a fiber optic river of colored light runs through…

The plan was coffee and a quick lap around a Nebraska downtown, nothing more. Then a narrow storefront…

The first time you roll down the window on a cool October morning in eastern Nebraska and hear…

Somewhere in central Nebraska there’s a village of a few hundred people where the main street smells like…

I went looking for a cheap dresser in eastern Nebraska and came home with a bag of vintage…

There’s a stretch of eastern Nebraska where the parking lot fills up before the lunch rush even starts,…

The paper bag gives it away before anyone takes a bite. Grease spots spread across the bottom, cinnamon…

Some of the best afternoons in Nebraska start with a wrong turn into a strip of quiet storefronts…

Somewhere in eastern Nebraska, past a stretch of gravel and a long line of brake lights, there’s a…

The parking lot gives away almost nothing. A gravel pull-off, a sign, a gap in the trees, and…