Where exactly is Nebraska?

Could you name all 50 states on a blank map? Can your kids? I don't think I could.  But I know that I would get more of them right today than I would've have before we moved to Nebraska.  I love this map of how New Yorkers view the rest of the country:

 

 

Nebraska is "somewhere in the middle" for sure.  One of my New York friends (Courtney) was convinced that I was actually living in Wisconsin, not Nebraska, for the entire 2 years I lived there.  My husband kept thinking that we were moving to Kansas, not Nebraska, until we actually got there.  Here's a real map of the USA for our lesson today:

 

 

This is how I described to people where Nebraska is:  Locate Texas (you should be able to do this btw), then go straight up - that's Oklahoma (where the wind comes sweeping down the plain), above that is Kansas (home of Dorothy and Toto), and above that is Nebraska (home of Warren Buffett and lots of cornfields).  It's pretty much right in the middle of the country.  Some states I just can't remember where they are, like Indiana (sorry Tonya). 

 

One of my coworkers in Nebraska asked me if my family used to go to the beach a lot, since we lived in North Carolina.  I told him no, we lived almost 4 hours from the beach, and that it was really too far to drive very often.  He was from Omaha, where the closest beach is over 20 hours away.  I guess the definition of "close" is relative.

 

While we lived in Nebraska, we visited Des Moines, Iowa,  and Kansas City, Missouri.  When we drove home to North Carolina, we passed through Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee.  My husband keeps telling me that we should get a big RV and drive around for vacations.  See the Grand Canyon! National Parks! Camping! This does not sound like a vacation to me, as I hate driving and really enjoy room service.  Our 3 day drive from Nebraska to North Carolina was enough driving to last me for a loooong time. The next long drive we take better have Disneyworld on the other end!