Touching down at Kearney Regional Airport in Kearney keeps you central, with surrounding cities and sights an easy drive away. Kearney is a college town on the Platte River in the middle of Nebraska, right on the old trail west. It is tidy and friendly, with a walkable downtown, a university, and a yearly natural event that draws people from around the world: the spring arrival of half a million sandhill cranes.

Things to do in Kearney: - Watch the sandhill cranes roost on the Platte at dawn or dusk from a blind at Rowe Sanctuary in March - Walk through the Great Platte River Road Archway, the museum that spans Interstate 80 - Visit Fort Kearny State Historical Park, a rebuilt outpost on the Oregon Trail - Browse the Museum of Nebraska Art downtown - Wander Yanney Park and its observation tower - See the Classic Car Collection of more than 200 vehicles - Catch a film or concert at The World Theatre - Stroll the trails and swim at Cottonmill Park

Minden and the Harold Warp Pioneer Village, a sprawling collection of Americana, are about 25 minutes from Kearney. Grand Island and the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer are 45 minutes east, Hastings, where Kool-Aid was invented, is about an hour, and Lexington is half an hour west. North Platte and Lincoln sit at the edge of a two-hour drive. Try a Runza, the stuffed bread pocket that Nebraskans grow up on, and plan around late March if the cranes are the goal. Kearney in crane season is one of the great wildlife shows in the country.