In the muddy spring of 2025, Aubrey finally reached her top bucket list location – the exotic Platte River in Nebraska. The Platte River is a crucial stopover for migrating birds, especially water fowl and shorebirds. Millions of sandhill cranes gather for a few weeks at a time from late February to early April. It is one of the largest migration gatherings in the world, and Aubrey has spent 10 years dreaming of seeing it. Kevin helped make that dream happen and they took a long weekend. The very first morning was full of raucous sandhill cranes waking up on the river. We were standing in the dark, before dawn, on a wooden bridge with at least 50 strangers. The sun slowly coming up, then hundreds of cranes were taking to sky. The soft dawn and opened space revealed five rare whopping cranes. A bird Aubrey hoped to see but knew it was a long shot. She thought her trip was already complete. The next stop was the newly renovated Audubon Rowe Sanctuary. With brand new trails to explore and signs to read, Aubrey and Kevin set out on a long walk to see what other birds could be found on their migration. Mid-morning, walking down the new path they admired the scene. Kevin said it would be nice to take more adventures like this. Aubrey started enthusiastically listing more ideas. Kevin was looking off in the distance “Yes, we could do more adventures like this, if you marry me?” and got down on his knee in the most romantic place in the world: a trail in an Audubon park with cranes screaming in the background. “Oh well yes, of course!” After a long moment together, there were more adventures to have. The next 2 days were spent wandering through an auto museum, Hasting’s natural history museum with the history of Kool-Aid and old taxidermy, a surplus of history on the Oregon Trail, and more cranes.