Wyoming - just passing through

Leaving Colorado we spent a quick couple of hours passing through the southeast corner of Wyoming, near Cheyenne. We were on our way back into Nebraska for one night, and then north to South Dakota. After stopping at a rest area for a quick lunch we noticed that there were some pretty interesting clouds. Out here in the plains there's a lot more sky than at home.

Rocky Mountain National Park - Colorado

While in Colorado the Shasta got a rest for most of a week while we spent some long-overdue time with family. We checked out a bunch of places in the Golden and Boulder area including Red Rocks, Celestial Seasonings, Pearl Street Mall, and the Coors factory. We also drove up the Peak to Peak highway to Este's Park and then spent much of the day on Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. This park is simply amazing. We have been to a number a National Parks but to me how beautiful it was here really caught me by surprise. It's just a spectacular place and not to be missed.

Welcome to Colorful Colorado?

The sign said Welcome to Colorful Colorado. However, while the landscape had changed a bit what we saw didn't look look like the images that come to mind for Colorado. Turns out that an area called the Eastern Plains makes up close to half of the state. As with other recent state border crossings we noticed immediately that it looked different than Nebraska, yet it's hard to describe how. We found much of I-76 to be under construction and were really happy that I had recently installed a Friction Sway Control Bar based on strong recommendations from several folks at the Tin Can Tourists rally. The Friction Sway Control proved well worth the cost many times during the trip, especially in situations like this when big rigs were going the other direction at 75mph just across the yellow line. After a while we decided to stop for lunch and found the spot in the photo above close to a town called Crook. Desolate, but also very cool in it's own way, and definitely "someplace else" which was one of my goals for the trip.

North Platte, Nebraska

The next morning we took a break from driving and did some local sight-seeing around North Platte. Scouts Rest Ranch and one of Buffalo Bills homes was adjacent to our small campground. We toured the home and barn which contain lots of photos and memorabilia from Buffalo Bill Cody's life and Wild West Show. We then headed across town to the Golden Spike Tower to take a look at the huge Union Pacific rail yard. As we drove around this hard-working town I noticed that there was an amazing array of well used vintage trailers around town that looked to still be still in occasional use by there owners. If you are looking for something special as a restoration project North Platte might be a good place to visit!

Nebraska - following the Oregon Trail

Another day back on the highway. Crossed the Missouri River at Omaha in fairly heavy traffic and construction but took note of a cool Union Pacific Railroad display with pair of locomotives up high on our right as we drove through. Noticed pretty quickly that Nebraska is a lot flatter than Iowa but still few trees and lots of corn. This stretch of Interstate follows the Oregon Trail as well as the Mormon Trail, and '49 Gold Rush trail ands we decide to make a stop to learn more at the Great Platte River Archway Museum. This museum is built in a huge arch over the highway and features exhibits about the trails that passed through the area. Pretty interesting but a bit sobering as to how difficult traveling was in those times. At the end of the day we were in the town of North Platte and made camp at Buffalo Bill Ranch State Park.

Iowa - Elk Horn Windmill & Prairie Rose State Park

The next day we got up and back on the road. We crossed the mighty Mississippi, then a lot of highway as we drove across the huge state of Iowa. This was the state that we were least familiar with so we were a little anxious so see what it was like. Pretty much immediately we noticed that the landscape had changed and that we definitely were not close to home anymore. Where we live in western NY state there is a fair amount of agriculture but this was different, there's a lot more sky and tree's are getting scarce. Across most of the state the low rolling hills are consistent and really beautiful. The hills reminded me a bit of being in a small boat on the ocean when you can't see very far over the crests of the waves that seem larger than you, only here there's corn! As we got close to the western edge of the state we called ahead to check site availability at Wilson Island State Park on the Missouri River and learned that the campground was closed due to flooding. Forced to modify our plans we decided to stop to see a Danish Windmill in a town called Elk Horn. It was pretty quiet in Elk Horn but the windmill was pretty cool and it reminded me a lot of one on Cape Cod that I visited as a kid. From there we made our way to Prairie Rose State Park, a sort of oasis in the area. There's a nice lake with fishing, a swimming area, and more trees than we'd seen for quite a while. We found this park to be full of unoccupied 5th wheels that were squatting on sites waiting for the upcoming Independence Day weekend. Even though there we trailers everywhere we had only a few actual neighbors, one had a really unique Big Foot brand fiberglass trailer that is a bit like a giant Scamp or Boler, to me it looked like it has good potential to be a cool vintage trailer sometime in the future.

Fisherman's Corner Campground on the Mississippi River - Illinois

After spending several hours at the RV/MH Museum we continued west. As far as traffic goes, this would prove to be the worst we would see on the trip. Several interstates come together just south of Chicago and it's not really someplace that you want to tow your vintage trailer through. It was bad enough that on future trips we will likely plan detours to avoid the area. Eventually my knuckles got their color back and we arrived at Fisher's Corner Campground on the Mississippi River in the Davenport/Quad Cities area. This campground is run by the Army Corp of Engineers and it was perfect for our overnight stop. Most of the RV's at this campground were class A buses, but there was another small yet more modern Shasta on a nearby site that stood out almost as much as we did.