The Nebraska Sandhills Scenic Byway stretches 272 miles from Grand Island, Nebraska to Alliance, Nebraska.
We decided to head to Breckenridge, Colorado for a long weekend. Rather than taking the generic route across Nebraska on Interstate 80 we decided to take a scenic route through the Sandhills. The route is only a few hours out of the way, and much more exciting that the interstate. We began our journey in Broken Bow (about 80 miles northwest of Grand Island).
As you enter the town from the east there is a Sandhills visitor center (large red barn) with information about the route. I wanted to stop here, as I was having trouble finding information when reaching the route online. I did find that there were several websites about the route, but the sites didn’t contain much information on where to find accommodation in each of the towns. We actually wanted to make it a bit further than Broken Bow, but the next few towns didn’t have many options for accommodation. That being said we’re glad we stayed in Broken Bow for the night. We found a charming hotel, with a great restaurant, and had time to look around the town.
The ladies at the visitor center recommended the Arrow Hotel. The hotel was built in the 1920s and still contains several period features. It’s right on the main town square, and has a great restaurant and bar. The room itself was OK. It was nothing special but large enough to have a full kitchen and a small seating area in each room. The receptionist said that the hotel originally contained 80+ rooms, but now only contains 23 rooms. There’s an old floor plan hanging on the wall in the restaurant which is worth a look.
We ate dinner in the restaurant, which was delicious and enjoyed the complimentary breakfast (with warm food options) the next morning.
We tried to leave at a reasonable time, because we wanted to make a few stops along the route before reaching Alliance for the night. The drive is only a few hours, but there are several stops to make along the way.
From Broken Bow we stopped in Anselmo. There is an old jail on the town’s main street that was built without any nails. When we stopped it looked like the locals were restoring, or at least working to maintain the old structure.
Our next stop was at the Nebraska National Forest just outside of Halsey.
The forest was established in 1907 and is the largest human-planted forest in the United States. At one point it was the largest man-made forest in the world but was surpassed by a forest in China.
While we were there we visited the Scott Lookout Tower. The tower was used to lookout for forest fires so the problem could be contained and extinguished as quickly as possible. The need for fire lookout towers has reduced due to current technologies.
The Scott Lookout Tower is open for visitors to get an amazing view over the forest and surrounding areas. You can drive right up near the base of the tower by car. The top of the tower can be reached by climbing 75 stairs and well worth the view.
After the national forest we grabbed a bite to eat at a grocery store in one of the small towns along the route.
After lunch we continued to the small town of Hyannis to visit the local museum. The museum is located in the courthouse and all the exhibit items have been donated or are on loan from locals or former locals.
The curator of the museum was great. She walked us around the three rooms and pointed out some of the more interesting items. She shared stories about the locals and facts about the town. It was all very interesting.
Some of our favourite exhibits were the barbed wire collection, the arrow head collection, and an old hat collection. We spent at least an hour there looking at everything on show.
By late afternoon we started to head to Alliance to view Carhenge. As you may have guessed, Carhenge is Nebraska’s take on Stonehenge.
A local resident lived in the UK and upon returning to Nebraska had the idea to create a replicate of Stonehenge. Since he didn’t have any large stones available, he decided to use hold cars (thinking they were roughly the same size and shape of the stones). During a family reunion, him and his family members arranged the cars in a large field.
At some point they decided to paint the cars grey to better match the stones. The arrangement is actually more impressive than I was expecting – plus you get to walk around and get closer to the cars than the original! 🙂
Over time, there have been additional car displays added around Carhenge, which makes for a fun walk around the area.
Alliance is the end of the Sandhills Byway. There is a visitor center on this side of the route for those heading west to east, that also includes a museum – Knight Museum and Sandhills Center. It’s well worth a visit. They displays are very well organized and provide some interesting information. In one section there are a number of old photos with information, including some fun facts and details about specific items within the photos.
We had planned to stay in Alliance for the night, but it was still early in the day, so we decided to head a bit further south so that we were closer to Chimney Rock which we were visiting the following morning. We stayed at a hotel in Bayard, only about 10 minutes from Chimney Rock.
We decided to take our time in the morning and headed to the Chimney Rock a bit later in the morning. You can’t get too close to the rock itself, but there is a visitor center with information and a viewing area.
As you get closer, you can see Chimney Rock from a distance. There are some great photo opportunities along the road.
The visitor center was great. There is a small fee, but worth the cost. There are lots of displays explaining the importance of Chimney Rock for those venturing along the Oregon and Mormon Trails. I was familiar with the trails from school (even though I have forgotten a lot since then) and most of it was new for Ben, so we had a great time reading and learning about the journey that so many people took on during the late 1800s.
At the back of the vistor center is a viewing area. As mentioned before, you can’t get too close to Chimney Rock, but it’s a nice view from the road and the vistor center. There are lots of signs to look out for rattle snakes, so you probably wouldn’t want to wander too far into the fields anyway!
After Chimney Rock we started to make our way out of Nebraska, and ended up stopping in Gering for lunch. We found a great place called The Mixing Bowl. The food was amazing and the service was great. We would stop there again and highly recommend it to anyone.
After lunch we continued out of Nebraska and onto our last stop before reaching our final destination. For information on our time in Cheyenne, Wyoming and the Terry Bison Ranch we visited you can read the Cheyenne, Wyoming blog post.
We had a great roadtrip by venturing off the interstate. Overall, we added about 140 miles, 3 hours, onto our drive. You can do the route in less days, but we had the time before meeting family in Breckenridge and were happy to take our time. The extra miles and time are well worth the scenic view and the extra stops available along the route.