Cowboy Hell — October 4, 2025 – John Agliata

🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩
Nebraska Adventure🚴🚴🚴
Sleeping Roaches🚴
Against The Wind🎶

THE DAILY UPDATE

To be honest, I have no idea which of the three women I am traveling with is most responsible for the fact that I awoke this morning in someplace called Stuart, Nebraska, a town so small that it make my former Small Town USA home of Tipton, Missourah, look like a bustling metropolis.

At some point, Wifey Poo told me a plan was afoot to bike with her two sisters (AKA The Sistas, which include Big Sista, Middle Sista (Wifey Poo), and Baby Sista) across Nebraska. Why? Well, to incorrectly quote the great alpine climber George Mallory, “Because it’s there, I guess.” And I guess I should have believed her. In the wake of my own cross-Missourah bike trek with my father-in-law, Wifey Poo and Tha Sistas did the exact same thing several years later, traversing the Katy Trail over four days. So there was history to indicate this cross-Nebraska plan would actually come to fruition.

But Nebraska? I mean, I get that Missourah isn’t exactly on any list of world’s best places to visit, but we do have an arch and a rib style and a really disgusting pizza style. Nebraska has … well … corn and anything Cornhusker sports-related, from my brief experience as an observer.

Wednesday, we drove from our humble country home to Kansas City, where The Sistas united. The next morning, we loaded up Baby Sista’s massive SUV with suitcases and supplies, then hitched three bikes to the trailer, and I set off behind the driver’s wheel for the nearly eight-hour trek to the start of something called the Cowboy Trail.

Like the Katy Trail, the Cowboy Trail is an old railbed from which the tracks have been removed. It spans around 185 miles from the dusty north-central Nebraska town of Valentine to the southeast to the dusty eastern Nebraska town of Norfolk. Along the way, there’s supposedly 200-plus bridges for bikers to cross, though the definition of what a bridge actually is might not hold up in a court of law. Other than that, there’s … nothing. I mean, there’s something. Just not a whole lot of something. There’s corn. There are cows. There are some really small towns whose signs that announce themselves to you as you arrive boast population numbers like 97 and 356 and 154.

The Sistas set off Thursday night upon our arrival in Valentine to knock out some miles before the real work began. In doing so, they realized the real work had already begun. Whereas the Katy Trail is well kept and hard-packed, making it relatively easy to traverse in any combination ranging from single file to three-abreast (a term I learned by watching the Indy 500 as a kid and that never failed to make me snicker when I said “abreast”), the Cowboy Trail, well, sucks. It’s sandy, loose-packed, and there’s basically just one lane to traverse, meaning it’s single file all the way. Oh, and you best not stray too close to the edge or, god forbid, off the path, because there rest a bazillion sharp-edged burr-like things such waiting to puncture your bike tires.

Oh, and that’s not all Nebraska has to offer its bikers. There’s the wind.

Now, I’m familiar with prairie winds. Having lived in Iowa and moved cattle from pasture to pasture in Kansas (a story for another day, to be sure), I understand just how persistent and annoying prairie winds can be if you are trying to do anything into the teeth of it. The Sistas realized really fast that riding through loose gravel/sand into a 25 mph wind kinda sucks.

If you’re wondering what my role is in all of this, well, I guess at some point during the planning of this trip that I never thought would actually happened, I agreed to be the support team. Not a member of the support team, mind you. The support team. My job is ostensibly to drop The Sistas off from a trailhead and pick them up from a trailhead further down the road. That was what I was told I was responsible for. But once the Cowboy Trail became The Sistas’ version of the Trail of Tears, I have become so much more.

I now serve as Encourager in Chief. I bring new supplies of ice and cold beverages to various spots where Trail meets Road. At one way point yesterday, I brought beer and chocolate — because I’m that kind of sherpa who anticipates wants and needs.

“Sherpa?” you ask.

Yes, sherpa. I’m calling myself by the name of the people who help hikers up Mount Everest. Why? Because it sounds cooler than “support team.” And because my job involves loading and unloading the newly renamed sherpa wagon with copious amounts of luggage and assorted travel/biking paraphernalia .

Anywho, in addition to all that, I also scout out where to eat in these dinky Nebraska towns at the end of their daily rides. So far, I’m two for two.

In Valentine, we ate at The Bunkhouse. I strongly recommend the Cajun dusted walleye dinner.

In Stuart, I found the Cast Iron Bar & Grill, choosing it from among the vast list of two restaurants with 30 miles of here. Every restaurant seems to have cheese curds, so we got some for the table. I had the chicken fried steak, which seems to be the second of the four food groups up here, along with the aforementioned curded cheese, steak, and onion rings.

If you ever find yourself in northern Nebraska, I recommend both.

One of my tasks for today? Find a restaurant in the booming city of O’Neil, which bills itself — and I’m not making this up — as the Irish capital of Nebraska. I’m not sure there was much competition for that title, but I’m both excited and frightened by the daunting task ahead of me, as O’Neil seems to have dozens of choices, and though I love Baby Sista, she can be kinda picky about her food, to say the least.

In addition, I also have served as mid-day stretcher. This entails The Sistas lying on the ground in whatever small town the stop at for a break and summon me and me pretending I have physical therapist training by lifting their legs up one at a time (that’s six legs, if you’re wondering) and giving them a good stretch while they utter various forms of “aaaaahhhh” and “that’s enough! that’s enough! that’s enough!” I’m pretty sure I’m violating the Hippocratic Oath, though I don’t remember signing it, so maybe I’m good.

The goal of this trip before The Sistahs discovered the state of the trail, the hell of the wind, and the unexpected ninety-degree temperatures was to traverse the entirety of the Cowboy Trail. That changed somewhere along with the way of the 60-mile Ride From Hell yesterday. Now, they’re “gonna do what we can do.”

My job? Offer word baskets of encouragement and be the best damn sherpa I can be.

Gotta run. Sherpa duty calls.

From News-B-Nuts:

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If you happen to see a sleeping roach, leave it alone. It may need its Z’s, and its babies will thank you. In the latest example demonstrating the weirdness of scientists, Really Smart People biologists at the University of Cincinnati discovered that some roaches need more sleep when they are pregnant, kinda like the humans who would love to step on them. In addition, baby roaches from momma roaches that do get their, um, beauty rest are better developed than those from mommas that don’t. These findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Biology because studies involving roach sleep can definitely be labeled “experimental biology.” In reading the study, it becomes clear that a student researcher’s job was to disturb the sleep of some of the pregnant roaches. I bet his parents are proud.

Contentment Creator: Writing. Always writing.

Song of the Day: Against the Wind, by Bob Seger

Meaningful Lyric From the SOTD:
Against the wind
We were runnin’ against the wind
We were young and strong, we were runnin’ against the wind

Recent Ear Stuff:
Songs I’m listening to while driving back and forth on shera duty are from my playlist made from the Daughtry/Staind/Breaking Benjamin concert I attended last year.

Until the End, Breaking Benjamin
It’s Not Over, Daughtry
Not Again, Staind
Outside, Staind
Had Enough, Breaking Benjamin
I Will Not Bow, Breaking Benjamin
Dear Agony, Breaking Benjamin
Breath, Breaking Benjamin
It’s Been Awhile, Staind

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Cowboy Hell — October 4, 2025

THE DAILY UPDATE

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