Returning to Nebraska

We left home in North Carolina on Sunday, August 18^th with our pickup truck loaded and Poppy in the back seat, to reunite with our R-Pod at the Prairie Oasis RV Park in Henderson, Nebraska.  It took us two and a half days to get there and we arrived on Tuesday at about noon.  Coincidentally, our good friend Deb Williams from Kernersville, NC was driving her son to Colorado Springs to start college and was traveling the same route as us on the same days.  We communicated by cellphone and, though we apparently passed each other several times along the way, never saw each other until she stopped at our campground for a visit shortly after we arrived there!

We found the R-Pod just as we had left it – no mildew or mice, thankfully – and spent Tuesday and Wednesday getting it organized and ready to travel.  We got underway on Thursday morning and traveled about 4 hours to a Nebraska State Recreation Area on Lake McConaughy.  This lake is man-made and was created by damming the Platte River.  It’s 22 miles long, crystal clear and lined with white sand beaches.  The whole north shore of the lake is State Park and there are lots of beach access areas, boat ramps, picnic areas and both primitive and “modern” campgrounds.  The modern campgrounds have electrical hookups and a dump station and water station at the entrance – really all we need.  They are very inexpensive and the one we stayed at was absolutely beautiful.  Because we arrived on a weekday, there were only a few campers there and we were able to get a site overlooking the water.  What a treat!

This is the view out the back window of our camper.

We are at a high elevation (at least to us who live at sea level).  It was about 3300 feet and we were amazed that though it got very hot during the day, the nights were cool (mid 60’s) and it took quite a while in the morning for the fog to clear off and the temperatures to warm up.  Of course, that situation was helped by the fact that we didn’t realize until the second day that we had crossed another time zone so we went to bed at what was actually 9:00 (we thought it was 10) and got up at 5:30!  So the morning was really long.  It did clear up and the sun came out about 10:30.

After lunch we hiked down to the beach with Poppy and we all went for a swim.  The water was great – cool enough to be really refreshing in the 90 degree temperatures but not so freezing cold that you turn blue.  Poppy chased her tennis ball for a while – I think she is going to lose weight on this trip as we are walking her a lot and she is swimming a lot – neither of which she does much at home.  Mostly she just lies around in the air conditioning at home.

One thing we really noticed about western Nebraska and eastern Colorado was the fields of blackeyed susans we saw along the road everywhere.  Wherever there wasn't corn growing there were fields filled with the beautiful yellow flowers, sometimes as far as the eye could see.  It was amazing.  You can see some in the picture above of the corner of our R-dome with the field and lake behind it.

We really enjoyed our time at Lake McConaughy but on Saturday, 8/24, we headed for Denver.  More about that in the next installment.