This Tiny Nebraska Town Is Surprisingly Quiet

VALENTINE, NEBRASKA – We’re in a place called Valentine, Nebraska, population 2,737. We’re camping in City Park for $5 a night.

Valentine is a cowboy town. There’s a big cowboy store on Main Street, for example – Young’s Western Wear. And when we drove down Main Street just now, we saw a guy in a cowboy hat leaning against a brick wall.

(The wall belonged to The Corner Bar and the man in the cowboy hat was drunk. The Corner Bar doesn’t have the swinging saloon doors you see in movies, but otherwise it looked just how a cowboy bar should.)

Anyway, it seems pretty dead around here. We’re the only ones using the city park to camp. And there wasn’t a single car parked along Main Street, even though there are hundreds of angled spaces on each side of the street.

Here we are in the middle of Main Street…

City Park is a bit weird, too. There aren’t any other campers, but there are plenty of cars that circle around the park and then drive away without stopping, as if they’re “cruising.”

The cars in this town look weathered and bruised.

And the playground equipment in the park is decrepit.

Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but we didn’t feel comfortable leaving our campsite to go to Main Street just now, for example.

Anyway, we have a nice, shady spot for our tent. The bathrooms are okay, the air’s cool, and the bugs aren’t bad. We’ll sleep here again tonight and move on in the morning…

Badlands tomorrow.

– Tom Dyson

P.S. One day, we’ll find the perfect campsite… where everything is just the way we need it… the bathrooms, the cell signal, the bugs, etc.

P.P.S. This is our science project. We have some caterpillars in these containers that will form chrysalides soon, and then hopefully they’ll emerge as swallowtail butterflies in a couple of weeks…

Like what you’re reading? Send your thoughts to [email protected].

A reader wants to know more about the best time to buy tanker stocks, after Tom said the industry is temporarily in the “doldrums”…

Reader question: Isn’t the doldrums the best time to buy tanker stocks?? I have been looking at them and FRO seems to drop off after the ex-dividend date for a while, and build up in the 45 to 60 days just prior to the next ex-dividend date. Is this a common phenomenon? Would you refer to that as a trade-able moment?

Tom’s response: You cannot profit from dividend payouts. The stock adjusts automatically by the exact amount of the dividend per share to account for the cash exiting the business.

While another offers a visual suggestion, after Tom called Dow-to-Commodities his favorite chart right now…

Reader comment: Tom, thanks again for the family and market insights. Would you correlate gold and commodities against the Dow? Seems to me if the commodities were high vs. the Dow, it would correlate well in relation to the Dow-to-Gold ratio. Would be nice to see a daily chart plotting the three.

Tom’s response: Yes, the Dow-to-Commodity ratio is a cousin of the Dow-to-Gold ratio. I will work on a chart…

Meanwhile, kind words and suggestions for the Dysons on their road trip through America’s heartland…

Reader comment: Hi Dyson family, I hope you are all well and enjoying your travels! Just wanted to drop a quick line to say I love reading the Postcards and have enjoyed your work ever since first reading The 12% Letter. I also enjoyed your work at the Palm Beach Letter, too!

Thank you so much for sharing your family’s adventures. Someday, I hope to take my family and follow in your footsteps. If you and your family are in need of a place to crash near Omaha, we have an acreage outside of town and would love to meet you all. My wife and I have four daughters (ages 10-4), one son (almost 2), and one more on the way.

Reader comment: Dyson family, you are getting an education that is unparalleled! As I’m sure you know, it is much better to see for yourself and then draw your own conclusions. Too many “city-slickers” know only what they read, and too often they only read what fits their preconceived ideas.

One advantage of traveling in the heartland of America (both cities and countryside) is that you get to touch its heart! Getting to know people and understanding their lives gives us empathy for them. What we are lacking today is a desire to try “walking in another man’s shoes.”

Go to Mt. Rushmore and see for yourself. Ask the park rangers tough questions. Read all of the history. Go to a hog farm. Ask more questions. I’m sure you will arrive at views that are more balanced that way.

Reader comment: If you are coming through Hamilton, Montana, I would be happy for you to stay at my property. I have been a gold investor for 21 years and my wife and I homeschooled our kids. We are empty nesters now. We live on a 17-acre place on the Bitterroot River. Chickens, horses, cats, wildlife. Great fishing! Thanks for your letters; they are very entertaining. Reminds me of the adventures we had with our kids when they were young.

Reader comment: Tom, great postcard yesterday from Iowa. Loved it! For your kids… have you run across tuttletwins.com? They publish children’s story books written by Connor Boyack at Libertas Institute in Utah, explaining freedom and free markets. Might be good for them now before they read Atlas Shrugged.

Also, you probably know Ron Paul has a free homeschooling program, and Khan Academy is excellent. What do you think about news that all the central banks are planning a digital currency by January 2021? Homeschooling mom of three grown sons.

Tom’s response: Yes, the boys have read the full collection of Tuttle Twin books and liked them a lot. Thanks for writing in with the suggestion!

And to those of you who’ve invited us over, our absolute and sincerest thanks! I can’t respond personally to thank each of you, but Kate and I read every one of your messages. Please keep writing us at [email protected].