Day 4 and it's still a barren landscape.  

We headed north out of Sidney, NE toward a couple attractions on the Oregon Trail.

First stop, Chimney Rock and the first hint of anything beyond a rolling hill.

This is a geological formation that marked the route to the Oregon Trail.  Travel south of this point, and you'll add many miles to the journey.  To the north are the impassable Badlands.

This formation could be identified from miles away.

A 30 minute drive to the west is Scott's Bluff Pass.

This was the only available route through the area.  Although only a 30 minute drive, it was two day's travel for the pioneers from Chimney Rock to this pass.

South of the pass is a ridge that would have been impossible for a wagon to cross.  The formation to the left is known as the Capitol Dome.

The park service maintains a road to the summit of Scott's Pass.  There are vehicle size restrictions on the road and our unit just qualified to use the road.  The park service provides a free shuttle bus to the summit so I opted to use their fuel and brake pads.  

From the top looking north over the Platte River valley.

Along the rocky ledge of the north side of the summit.

The vistas are infinite.  This view looks east back toward Chimney Rock which is just barely visible on the horizon at left center of the frame.  The hiking trail to the summit is visible in the center right.  It was closed (darn it) due to a rock slide.

We moved south from Scott's Bluff and found an RV park at a bison ranch just south of Cheyenne, WY.  The campgrounds in the area are all full for tonight and tomorrow so we'll sit tight for a day and let the weekenders clear out of the woods on Sunday and head toward Estes Park, CO and the Rocky Mountain National Park.  We can see snow on the mountains from here and are looking forward to ditching this 90 degree heat of the plains.

It’s day three of the great western trek.

We got up and around and left the Double Nickel campground about 8:00 am.  About an hour west of I-80, we stopped at Kearney, Nebraska and the “Platte River Road Archway”.  It’s an arch built over I-80 that houses an interpretive center about history of Nebraska and the Lincoln Highway that runs from coast to coast.  It took us a couple hours to go through it all and was very informative.

There are many displays and you wear a headphone to get a narrative as you go through the exhibits.

At the window overlooking I-80 passing underneath the arch, they have a radar gun that records the speed of the passing vehicles.  Cars are typically around 80 mph and trucks 65 to 70 mph.  We have been traveling at about 65 mph and rarely have to pass anyone.

This is the arch from the freeway.  It looks like the Oasis rest stops around Chicago.  When I mentioned that, the people there had never seen the Chicago facilities.

An hour farther west, we went into North Platte and found the Bailey Railroad Yard.  This is the largest rail yard in the world.  There are about 150 trains that enter this facility every day.  They process 10,000 rail cars a day.  The observation tower is the Golden Spike Tower.

I don’t remember the dimensions, but it’s something like 1 mile across and 5 miles long.  I couldn’t get my panorama function to get the whole thing.  This shot is about half the yard.

Looking to the west…

…and looking to the east.

The single rail car that is in the background just to the left of the tall pole, and looks tipped left to right, is a car that is exiting the “hump”.  This is where the cars are separated and sent down to any one of several tracks to connect to its proper outbound train.  It is all an automated process.

We had plans to end up near Denver today, but didn’t make it.  Instead, we’re parked at Cabela’s campground in Sidney, Nebraska.

Tomorrow is a bit of a cleanup tour of the NW corner of Nebraska and the Oregon Trail before heading south into Colorado.

This mountain time zone isn’t very agreeable to my biological clock.  It’s like 8:00 pm and I’m spent.

Progress...I think.

The last 600 miles has kind of all looked the same.  Sometimes flat, sometimes a bit hilly, but always EXTREMELY rural.

Started out this morning traversing Iowa.


It's a couple hundred miles of rural farms and hills.  You're rarely driving on level ground.  The semi's go 60 mph up the hills and 75 mph down.  It gets to be a challenge for my consistent 65 mph.  I thought the hills would kill gas mileage on the RV but I actually did a tenth better today than yesterday.  The absence of wind might have helped that cause.

Into Nebraska and just west of Omaha, Kathy directed me to our first tourist stop.


It was the Quilted Moose Quilt Shop in Gretna, NE.  She said it was a great quilt shop.


Judging by the sack she left with, it must have been OK.  I'm expecting she'll whip up a new quilt in time for our Yellowstone evenings.

So, onward across Nebraska.  Looks just like Iowa except flatter.


We stopped mid-state near York, NE.  It's a nice little campground just off the interstate.


The campground is right next to a golf course.


And the hole closest is a little par 3 over water.  The campground has a swing near the tee to enjoy the tee shots.


So we're going to continue west tomorrow.  I thought we would get to the Denver area, but that looks to be a long drive so the plan is to get into Colorado and then decide on Friday how far to venture into the mountains.

Sorry about the post.  I can't seem to get the pictures to load properly.  Perhaps it's a restriction on our free wifi in the camp.

Day 2 is history.

The Journey Begins...

We packed up the Minnie Winnie and headed for points west.  Today's goal was to just get on the road and get west of Chicago.  That's been accomplished and it was an uneventful trip across rural Illinois.

We've traveled to nearly the Iowa state line on I-80.  Total mileage today was a little over 400 miles.  That's about 40 gallons in motorhome lingo.  We haven't been to a gas station yet.

We stopped at a small private campground in Geneseo, Illinois.

The campground is well kept and along the banks of the Green River.

Hmmm...wonder how it got that name?  This flows into the Rock River which flows into the Mississippi not too far away.  The river is LOADED with bluegill on their spawning beds.

As an added attraction, I was sitting at the table, heard a big collision and looked up to see a silver SUV spinning in the road at the park entrance.  It was a significant collision.

Looks like the red pickup slammed into the rear of the SUV.  Didn't appear to be anyone seriously injured.

So here we sit, sipping on our Canadian Breezers enjoying the first night in the land yacht.

Day #1...successful.

Westward Ho!

I've been debating for something like 4 months now, how to move forward during life after boating.  After failing to make a deal on a 37' Sea Ray a couple months ago, we decided to take a different direction.

A "land yacht"!

It's a 24' Winnebago Minnie Winnie.  Pictures won't do it justice.  This unit is truly in "showroom" condition.  34,000 miles on the motor, 69 hours on the generator, and a showroom shine you wouldn't believe...inside and out.

We traveled to Greensburg, PA to get this gem.  While we were traveling to look at it, the owner had received an additional 9 calls from as far away as Florida and Texas.  These smaller motor homes that are in good condition are in high demand.  We feel fortunate to find this one.  We're expecting delivery in about a week.

Some other views...

Interior looking forward.

Interior looking aft.

Dash

Watch for future posting of our "cruises" this year.  Reservations at Yellowstone are already made.

In other news, boating will not be completely forgotten...just downsized.  I'm taking delivery of the new "ship" next week.

So maybe life after Play Dough won't be so bad after all...maybe.

Well, finalized the sale of the boat today.  Future plans are unclear.  Just going to step back from the slipped boat for the time being and go do something new for a while.

In the meantime, it's time to head south and look forward to our cruise to Aruba.

It's been a whole three months since I posted here.  Maybe that was because things were pretty dull in my world.  Not much to crow about.

During the last few weeks of the boating season, we took a drive up to Sleeping Bear Dunes with some friends.  That's a lot of beach.

I guess I don't remember how far it is down to the water, but somewhere around 300 feet rings a bell.

I'd think I'd take the beach the couple miles back to Empire before I'd climb that 300 feet.

Back in Manistee, we enjoyed the passing of the freighters behind our boat.  We were there for three or four of these events.

There's nothing glamorous about those ships, unlike a cruise ship.  These ships are all banged up, dented and rusty.  Looks like they see a lot of abuse.

The fishing from late August to the end of the season was poor due to unusually high water temperatures off the Michigan coastline.  We never ventured out again.  It was hot and sticky so after spending MANY days on the boat this season, I completed the fall service and put it in storage a couple weeks after Labor Day.

I think we've discovered the resort and vacation atmosphere is more important to us than the fishery anymore.  We missed being in Mackinaw City even with all it's annoyances.

So...with the boat in storage, I made some sawdust and created a quilt rack for Kathy.

I took a day and wandered through the fall in-water boat show on Lake St. Clair.  It was entertaining.  I picked this one out as what I would have left with.

It's a 40 foot Sea Ray Sundancer.  Completely different from the open deck Sundancers of the past.  I don't have to worry about ever owning one.  Way too many $$$$.

Before the cold weather set in, I drove over to Manistee to inspect the boat and polish the hull sides.  That's a long hard day to make the drive and get the polish process completed.  It's why I only get the sides done.

The deck gets all dusty over the winter anyway so there's no point in doing much work on that.  They left plenty of room between the boats for me to work on the hull.  That was nice.

The drive home was about perfect for fall color.  It made the drive much more pleasant.

That closed the book on anything boating this year.

Plans for next year are completely undecided.  We've talked about some alternatives to boating for a year but those plans are yet to develop.  The next scheduled boat ride is a 9 day run to Aruba.  That should be a real nice trip.

I'll let you know.