(MONEY Magazine) – As a travel columnist, I tend to spend lots of time looking at maps, and this often turns out to be very educational. While recently scanning a map of Nebraska, for example, I noticed that there's just nothing in the western portion of the state. I mean, I hadn't exactly conceived of the Cornhusker State as a bustling population center, but I wasn't prepared for the degree of emptiness the map depicted--I counted 19 counties in western Nebraska with three towns or fewer, including five with only one town apiece. Surprisingly, however, the major road atlases designated the region's primary thoroughfares as scenic byways, so there was clearly something worth seeing there. I was intrigued.

As I soon learned, western Nebraska was one of the last places in America to be settled, and is still among the least populated, with huge cattle ranches often resulting in more cows per square mile than people. But the more I read about the area, the more curious I became--national monuments, fossil beds, wildlife refuges. Soon I was hooked. So after fielding the obligatory questions from befuddled acquaintances ("You're going where?") and setting aside the nagging worry that Nebraska might put the "plain" in Great Plains, my girlfriend and I set off to find the something amid all the nothing.

Day One. Western Nebraska has no airports to speak of, so we fly into Denver and spend the afternoon driving northeast across rambling Colorado prairie. After we cross the state line and pass a welcome sign informing us that Nebraska is the HOME OF ARBOR DAY (don't smirk--it's better than the slogan on the corresponding Colorado sign: MOUNTAINS AND MUCH MORE), our introduction to Nebraska is tiny Venango (pop. 192). We stop for a beer and a burger at the splendid Swazi Bar, where the barmaid treats us like family and mentions that the special musical attraction at the upcoming county fair will be none other than Foreigner, whose career has apparently nosedived a wee bit (or maybe they all used to be in 4-H). As we check in at a nearby motel, we agree that we quite like this state so far.

Day Two. The day begins with a drive to Arthur (pop. 128), the seat of--and only town in--Arthur County, where we've read that there's a church made entirely of straw. Sure enough, a sign on the structure says it was made from "baled hay" in 1928. Unfortunately, its exterior was stuccoed sometime between then and now, to singularly unremarkable effect. Undaunted, we begin driving west on U.S. 26, which parallels the Oregon Trail. Whatever hardships and tedium the original wagon-train pioneers experienced while traversing this region (at rates of about 15 miles a day), at least they had some great scenery--the landscape is spectacular, with rolling hills giving way to dramatic buttes and bluffs. We stop to admire one of the highlights: Chimney Rock, a magnificent vertical formation that served as a natural signpost on the Trail, letting settlers know that they had, oh, just another 1,300 miles or so to go.

Day Three. More Oregon Trail pursuits, starting with a two-hour hike up the ridges of Scotts Bluff National Monument, a huge, beautiful rock formation that served as another marker for Oregon-bound pioneers. We've read that actual wagon-wheel ruts from the Trail are visible nearby, but this turns out to be inaccurate, which so distresses us that we temporarily abandon Nebraska and drive an hour west to Guernsey, Wyo., where wheel ruts from another portion of the Trail are plainly visible, etched into the surrounding rock--a tangible, incredibly affecting link to America's past. Our heads abuzz, we scoot back over the state line on well-paved roads in our climate-controlled vehicle, enjoy a great dinner, slip into a comfy motel bed and realize what total wimps we are compared with America's early settlers.

Day Four. Today we focus on matters prehistoric, with visits to Agate Fossil Beds and Toadstool Geological Park, a pair of paleontological sites that feel almost painfully desolate and remote. Both are interesting, and Toadstool's bizarrely eroded badlands moonscape is surreal, but it's hard not to think that the fossilized critters whose remains are entombed here probably expired from sheer loneliness. Fortunately, the day also features two excellent neighborhood encounters: lunch at the general store in Harrison (pop. 291), where the folksy atmosphere belies the monstrous proportions of the 28-ounce burgers, and a night of drinking at a saloon in Chadron (pop. 5,588), where some elderly ranchers teach us dice games while the bartender chases a wayward bat around the bar with a broom, much to everyone's amusement.

Day Five. The party line is that Nebraska is flat, like the rest of the Great Plains, but the varied topography we've seen so far has already put that notion to rest. Today the landscape changes yet again, as we motor through the gorgeous Sand Hills, North America's largest stretch of grass-covered dunes. Along the way, we stop outside Alliance (pop. 9,765) to see a classically eccentric piece of American folk art: Carhenge, a collection of junked cars that have been painted gray and arranged in a field in a pattern that precisely mimics the layout of Stonehenge. A more traditional attraction awaits us later in Gordon (pop. 1,803), where we see the Starr Bros. Circus, a small troupe that's been touring the area. The ringmaster looks too old for this sort of barnstorming work, the kid juggler looks too young to be doing any work, and the whole production is riddled with tragi- comic blunders. But the children in the audience don't seem to mind, and neither do we.

Day Six. While driving through Eli--a dirt-road flyspeck town whose population is unlisted--we see a friendly-looking old woman tending her yard and decide to stop for a chat. Lois, an Eli native, turns out to be the town's last remaining resident. "Everyone else is gone," she says, "but I like it here, so I'm staying. Wanna help me weed the lawn?" We politely decline and move on, pondering her contented isolation. Later, driving east, we come upon the boundary line between mountain time and central time. Unable to resist, we get out of the car, stand on opposite sides of the sign marking the border and have the obvious conversation: "It's six o'clock." "Nuh-uh, it's five o'clock." Whatever--out here in the middle of nowhere, with a huge sky extending over the endless prairie, the whole question of time seems moot.

Day Seven. A very animal-centric day, beginning with a visit to Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge, where we see elk, deer, longhorn steer, bison and prairie dogs, all of them remarkably tame as they go about their business. Their carefree existence contrasts sharply with the animals we see later on in Stapleton (pop. 299), where we check out "Nebraska's biggest little rodeo." An entertaining spectacle, but it's a bit disconcerting to watch so much livestock being chased, lassoed, tied, wrestled and herded (or just ridden by some guy who won't stop shouting "Yee-hahh!"), after having seen the wildlife refuge's free-range oasis just a few hours earlier. Ultimately, however, none of the rodeo animals seem the worse for wear, though the same can't be said for two cowboys who have to be carried off after being kicked and trampled during the wild-horse-taming competition. Somewhere, I think to myself, Trigger and Silver are smiling.

Day Eight. On our last day, we head for Imperial (pop. 2,007), site of the Chase County Fair. The rides, fried food and blue-ribbon cucumbers are fun, but the real prize is the show we've been patiently awaiting all week: Foreigner. They do not disappoint, belting out all their hits with impressive gusto to a wildly appreciative crowd. Of course, there's the slight problem of Foreigner being the Worst Band in the World, but somehow that doesn't seem to matter. The sight of real live internationally famous rock stars playing in the middle of a Nebraska cornfield--even fat, balding, ugly rock stars with impossibly awful stage outfits and really bad haircuts--turns out to be very potent entertainment.

And on that note we head for home, happy to have learned that Nebraska actually puts the "great" in Great Plains after all.

Paul Lukas, winner of a Lowell Thomas Award from the Society of American Travel Writers, has traveled in 44 of the lower 48 states, and counting.