Jerry Story | Wander Junkie

This was a perfect trip…lovely weather, worthy friends and a bit of nirvana.

I had an opportunity to visit my hometown of Cozad, Nebraska and I took it…or I should say my lovely wife Linna gave me her blessing to fly back home for 4 days to see friends and classmates. I also had a motive, my good friend and classmate Jerry Story was coming back from Finland with his family and we haven’t seen each other for a couple of years or so. Plus my other good friends and classmates Brad Wilcher and Nick Morse from Lincoln, Nebraska were coming back too. My ex-brother-in-law Brad Stallbaumer opened up his 6 bedroom house to Wilcher and I and we used it for home base the whole weekend.

First night back we all met up at the local Elks club for food and beverage, we had other 1979 classmates that showed up too; Andy Pflaster, Todd Morris, Deb Hunke and Kelly Worrell. Of course we closed down the Elks and a few of us walked over to Big E’s…the only bar left in my small town of 3,500 people. Even though I finally got to bed in the wee hours, I answered the bell for breakfast at the Green Apple restaurant in Cozad…of course my classmate Todd Morris had to call me out of bed though.

Breakfast was followed by a fishing trip with a long time buddy John Dorsey out to Johnson Lake about 15 miles from Cozad. We usually limit out on decent size Walleye, but our fishing rods were only bringing in small rubbish fish. Not to waste any precious time during this well-deserved hometown visit our group took off to Eustis, Nebraska for Wurst Tag for the evening; this is more or less one big ass party that is similar to Oktoberfest. This was actually a fabulous time to meet up with many old friends to share stories. One major gripe I have is the light beer they were serving during a major German type festival…your only choices were Coors Light, Bud Light and Busch Light! Who in their right mind would serve such crap beer for a major German festival?

My last day was another Green Apple breakfast followed by some target shooting with the Story family. I brought back my 9mm and .45 Kimber 1911 style guns from Seattle and we shot 200 rounds of ammo. This was the first time shooting for Erika and Patrick Story and I know they appreciated it.

: My flight back to Seattle took us very close to famous Mt. Rainier

: Patrick Story loving the .45 Kimber

: The North Platte river at flood stage. This was a normal occurrence when I was a kid growing up in Cozad

: It’s one thing that I do miss is the Midwest storms

: My niece Zoey was in Cozad too, so I had a chance to stop by and say hi.

: My good friend John Dorsey in front of his longtime friend…his boat.

: Todd Morris, Andy Plaster, Nick Morse, Brad Wilcher, Jerry Story, Deb Hunke, Rick Freeman and Kelly Worrell.

: Cozad has more cattle than people. This feedlot can hold 20,000 cows.

: Erika handle the 9mm Kimber with ease

: We call this Walleye a cigar because it’s so damn small.

: The iconic grain bins in Cozad

: We had a great time at the Eustis Wurst Tag event.

How many times in your lifetime you get to meet up with a couple of high school classmates in Amsterdam and then train down to Frankfurt, cruise through Austria and Southern Germany. Well….it doesn’t happen without effort and planning. Jerry Story, Brad Wilcher and I started planning this trip last year and it finally came to fruition. Jerry and I landed in the morning with Brad coming in the early afternoon, when he came out of customs….we had a cold beer waiting for him.

After a brief train ride to city center we only had a 5 minute walk to our hotel and off to the Red Light District for a few drinks we went. That night we booked a two hour boat ride through the canals….I will book this same boat company with my wife Linna on our next trip.