Enjoy having a fascinating day visiting Ashfall Fossil Beds, Neligh Mill, and Cuthills Winery. Have you ever been on a fossil dig? Travel the roads of Northeast Nebraska to Royal, NE. This tourist stop attracts 25,000 visitors a year. Ashfall Fossil Beds is distinctive enough that the Public Broadcasting Service's series Nova featured the site and a photo article appeared in National Geographic Magazine. According to bone hunter Dr. Voorhies, Ashfall is the only place in the world that has skeletons of large prehistoric animals in the round. Their rib cages are still bulging up just like a live animal and that's really what makes this place unique. The park's enclosed Rhino Barn with the intact skeletons is the star attraction. It's was recently expanded and is currently eight times larger than its original size. Bring your camera for some great photos! You'll begin the morning with a breakfast snack and a guided tour of the Neligh Mill State Historic Site in Neligh, NE. Sift through the story of milling in Nebraska and tour a mill with its original 1880s equipment still intact. Explore the mill, restored mill office, reconstructed flume and penstock and the remains of the mill dam. The Museum displays explain the history of the mill and provide information about other water-powered mills once located throughout the Midwest. After a delicious lunch in a restaurant that was converted from a barn, you'll have time to visit the former hayloft. It now serves as a unique gift shop. Next stop is your arrival at Ashfall Fossil Beds. Meet our personal tour guide at the Visitor's Center. Our guide will lead us around the grounds to important volcanic dinosaur fossil beds which are ongoing excavation sites. Before returning home we'll make a stop at Nebraska's first winery. In the rolling hills of northeast Nebraska Cuthills Vineyards offers its visitors award-winning wines in a restored 1920s dairy barn surrounded by seven acres of vineyards. Grapes grown included: deChaunac, Temparia, LaCrosse, Loralei, Brianna, Petite Amie, and Concord. Ed and Holly will be pleased to offer you a special wine tour/tasting event. There will be a stop on our return for fast food. Cost paid to MCC includes bus transportation, luncheon, Neligh Mill's guided tour, and winery tour/wine sampling. Bring ($12) for the Ashfall Fossil Beds guide tour fee & breakfast snack which will be collected as you board the bus. Other meals and shopping are not included. Our deluxe motor coach departs promptly at 7:30a.m. from Metro's Sarpy Center, 9110 Giles Road (park and meet the bus at the northeast parking lot). We return approximately 9:00p.m.. *Sorry no discount. Refunds will not be allowed within 7 days of the trip. Trip leader: Kevin Kowskie Requirement: moderate walking.