Hiding out for awhile

August 31 - Sept 5, 2012
Omaha, Nebraska
Offutt AFB Fam Camp

We are going to hide out here until after the holiday, and wow what a great place this is.  A small lake, but plenty big enough to water ski on it and still fish on one end.. Huge cottonwood trees so it's well shaded.  We were lucky to get in here as we were on a waiting list for 3 nights, but it all worked out.

Sunset

Before we left home Joe and I had eye exams and we both needed to upgrade out glasses.  We went to Costco like we always do and asked if the glasses could be shipped to another Costco.  No!  So we thought we would just order then when we go to Lancaster, PA.  Somewhere along our travels I called the Costco in Omaha, NE and they said yes they could ship them for an additional $15.00.  We found the Costco here in Omaha and was informed that no, they could not ship them to another Costco, but it would be no problem to ship them to a home address for $15.00.  Well that certainly is doable, got everything taken care of and only one $15.00 charge to send them to Joe's sister Ellen in Rising Sun, MD.  I sure hope this works out ok because we have to be in Rehoboth Beach State Park in Delaware by Oct 2nd which is only 103 miles from Ellen's house.  I will keep you posted of the ongoing saga of the Costco ordering ordeal.

On our way to Costco, about 15 miles away there was a lot of Hwy signage to understand and  navigate. There is the 370, 75, 480, 80, 680 and then get off at the right place.   Highways were everywhere, lanes were coming and going,  and I must say very unique on how they shuffle traffic around.  They just elevate the highway and have another highway  underneath and then you could get to one or the other now and then and then pick the right off ramp.  It seemed to all work out quite well.  Seattle and the whole Puget Sound could learn a lesson on how to move traffic around a little more efficient.

One day, we ventured over to the Air Force Museum about 25 miles south. 

Isn't this a beautiful entrance? 

The SR-71

When we lived in Grass Valley, Northern California, the SR71 was stationed at Beale AFB 

about 50 miles west of us. 

 When the SR71 flew overhead it seamed like everyone stopped to watch it

 for as far as they could, It disappeared pretty fast

This is one of those pictures that is made with lots of little pictures

 This is a tanker that refuels fighter aircraft,  the square window just to the left of that kid with the blue shirt is where the person sat and operated the boom and gets it all lined up 

while they are both going pretty darn fast

(And I thought I had challenges getting to Costco)

That's about it for the first couple of days here.  Oh, I forgot to tell you it's still hot and muggy, but we're not going to talk about it anymore.  Maybe it will just go away.

Have a blessed day, drive safely, thanks for stopping by.

Nancy

And, the answer is.......

Thursday August 30, 2012
Elm Creek, NE
Sunny Meadows PA CG

This is mostly a drive, drive, drive day.  It's still hot, about 103' when we pulled into our CG.

We traveled along US Hwy 30 which is aka The Lincoln Hwy and  I must say a very good Hwy.  We went through many small farming town and followed the rail road tracks all day.  With all the slow downs for the small towns we estimated it took us about 30" longer than going on I-80.  No reason to stop here but it was too far to drive from Scotts Bluff to Omaha, our next stop so I just looked for a PA park about half way.  Sunny Meadows was good, all gravel, and best of all good electricity for our A/C.  We didn't use anything else.

Along the way we braved the heat and stopped in a cute little town of Gothenburg, NE at the Pony Express Station.  In those days the mail was known as "lightening Mail".  We have also been to the end of the Pony Express in Sacramento, CA.  In Sacramento they have a stunning bronze statue representing the Pony Express.  In fact, they also have a great train museum.

This was the actual station house, it originally sat closer to the Platte River about10 miles away.

A charming little cottage, luckily they now have a good air conditioner inside.

No pictures of inside as it was covered with souvenirs everywhere. 

I',m not sure how many coal trains go by in one day but it would be safe to say; "Dozens". They are all headed east and empty ones are heading west.  When we were in Gillette WY a couple of years ago we were told that the coal trains are made up of 100 cars and each car holds 100,000 pounds of coal.  These all looked about the same.  Now that's a lot of coal.  There's a vast amount of coal and oil in the States and Canada, we just need to use it and stop buying our fuel needs from all those Middle Eastern Countries.  They don't even like us, let's get out of there.

This is corn, field corn, it will eventually be harvested and then stored in corn bins or silos. 

 The corn has to be a certain dryness before they harvest it, otherwise it will rot.

The green in the background is some kind of beans.

Beans. 

 Every kind of bean is grown here, soy, black, pinto, northern, red, lima, and more.

The fields are either green, turning yellow or yellow.  I don't know when they harvest them but this field still has immature beans growing

Close up of above beans

A row of field corn before it has dryed

Field of alfalfa with lots of vetch mixed in it.  Or maybe I should say a field of vetch with alfalfa mixed in it.  Whatever, there is more vetch.  This is baled in those big round bales.  I think the vetch is from the pea family and put lots of good nutrients back in the ground.  This will probably end up being a field of beans or corn next year.



This sure was a lot of blogging for only a one night stay.  That's about it for today.

Oh, I almost forgot the answer to my last post, 

What in the world is this contraption?

It's a chicken plucker.

No, I don't know how it works.  It's from the 1920s, 1930s.

Have a blessed day and thanks for stopping by

Nancy

Scotts Bluff

August 28 & 29, 2012
Gering, Nebraska
aka Scottsbluff, NE
Robidoux RV Park

High of 101' with slight breeze, more fires are reported in northern Nebraska.

Disclaimer:  I have seen Scotts Bluff, and Scottsbluff spelled both ways, don't really know which one is correct.

I remember as a child we would watch Wagon Train on our black and white TV.  Like most young children this really made an impression on me.  I remember as the wagons passed by Scotts Bluff there was a LARGE bluff out in the flat plains.  Well, it's not quite like that.  There are many bluffs and many rolling hills, but this particular bluff meant that the wagon trains were 1/3 of the way to Oregon or California and one thing that made them so excited is that they had been traveling for weeks along the North Platte River and their was nothing to see, no hills, no big rocks, just flat prairie, so it was exciting to see the many different bluffs.  They named the bluffs, such as court house bluff, jail house bluff or whatever their imagination could come up with.

This is the main "Scottsbluff" that they were looking for

 on their long trip to know where they were.

This is the Conestoga wagon

This was known as the Murphy wagon

Inside the Murphy, I like my Airstream a lot better

The Studebaker wagon.

I think this is the same Studebaker as the car

Looking down from the Bluff 

You can see another bluff behind this sign

A fun and well presented museum

If you look real close you can see the wire running between these bunches of twigs.  There were no trees in the area so they used what they could.  The things next to the twigs helped make the fencing but not sure how.

This is how the eggs were stacked in order to take them to the market

 .

You could weigh a chicken in this by stuffing the head down the small hole.

 I guess these were live chickens,  Who would have known they needed to be weighed.

Anyone know what this is?

check answer on tomorrow's blog

Buggy taking the Humpty Dumpty egg crate to the market

More bluffs in background

 Chimney Rock 

 The field corn is a little dry but they seem to make it

This flower though is on it's last leg, and no water in sight

Safe travels to all and have a blessed day

Nancy

Busy day

August 27, 2012
Douglas, WY
Fairgrounds

Boy was this a hot, hot day.  Too hot to dry camp so we stayed at the Fairgrounds, as long as we had power for the A/C we didn't care where we stayed.  It was about 98' when we arrived at 2:30 pm, all we did was hook up the electric, turn on the A/C and the floor fan and take a nap.  We are just not use to this heat.  This was the 3rd day of a 3 day of a pro-rodeo, horse trailers everywhere.  The campground had three sections of about 50 sites per section.  Later in the evening we walked over to the grandstands to watch the last of the rodeo.  The barrel racing was the best.

Our next day was going to be only about 150 miles so in the morning we headed out to Ayres Natural Bridge with a small county park and about 10 camping spaces with a few that could take up to about a 30 foot trailer, but no electric, which would be ok if it wasn't so darn hot.  A beautiful oasis, big trees, creek going under the natural bridge.  The bridge is one of only three natural bridges in the world with a trout stream running  underneath.  Wagoneers traveling west often rested in this spot which sits only a mile or so from the Oregon Trail..

On approach to park

The Bridge

I had to climb up the trail going to the top of the bridge, it's a good thing I had my hiking stick, this was very steep and rocky.  I wasn't sure just how I was going to get back down.

I made it to the top. 

 The white rock is the top and the reddish is another outcropping of rock

Looking down you can barely see the truck where Joe and Buddy are taking a rest.

Douglas is also known as the founder of the great mysterious " Jackalope".

 In fact you can to go to www.jackalope.org for information on the city.

At the visitor center is a museum of old trains. 

 I don't know what it is about old trains but I seem to be drawn to them.

The dinning room car.

  I would have loved to travel "back in the day" on this train.

The sleeper car

It's sort of hard to focus on this picture, it's looking down the isle of the sleeper car.

 I didn't see any rooms that were like the bunk bed style that was in

 "Some Like It Hot" (one of my favorite movies)

Visitor center of Douglas Wyoming. 

 A charming small town with many interesting things to see and do when it's not too hot. 

 There was a cute little lady in the center about 5 feet tall, she said she was born and raised here and in her 82 years she has never seen it this hot. 

 She said it might get hot for a few days in July, but never all summer and never in August.

Since we only had about 150 miles to go we didn't leave until about 11:30 am.  We were headed to Scottsbluff, well actually to Gering, Nebraska about 3 miles south of the actual Scottsbluff.

Well you know us and BLOW OUTS.  Yep, it happened again.  A reminder, these tires are from Discount Tires, luckily we bought the flat tire insurance policy on these tires. There is no Discount tire around here, but when I called they said to replace the tire and then take in the receipt to the next Discount tire center and they will pay us for the new tire.  

This time we went to a Good Year tire center in Scottsbluff and got a Japanese tire instead of the Marathon.

The 150 miles took us about six hours to complete, luckily we were able to pull into the drive of a farm house with a really really nice lady and her high school age son.  He changed the tire for us and we were on our way.  We gave him $20.00 for his efforts, I hope that was enough,  probably 25 or 30 would have been more appropriate.  He was a lifesaver, otherwise we would have had to wait for AAA for about an 1 1/2 hours or more.  We were in the middle of ?????

We eventually settled in at Ribidoux RV Park, a City Park.  Very nice place, big spots.  Did I mention that it was 103' when we got there?

Safe travels to you and may you have a blessed day

Thanks for stopping by

Nancy