Chadron State Park, Nebraska

Yesterday, our last day in North Platte, Nebraska, was mostly unremarkable. I did see both the male and what I think is the female little yellow birds (American Goldfinch?).





We went out to dinner with Karon and her family at Whiskey Creek, a barbeque down the street from the RV Park. That was some of the best barbeque we've had!

A quiet evening, and then it was time to get some sleep.

Today was travel day. We headed west on I-80 for a few miles before turning off on 26 west. We merged into Highway 385 and came to the northwest corner of Nebraska, to Chadron State Park. What a beautiful place! Their web site says this is one of Nebraska's best kept secrets, and now I believe them. The campground has 70 spaces, all with 30 amp electric. There are water spigots located about every 7 sites, and a dump station. Even though it's a weekend, there are a lot of empty sites. In the section we're in, the only other rig besides Karon's and ours is the park host. Although we haven't explored yet, there is a pond for fishing and a swimming pool. The park is located within the Nebraska National Forest. We're at about 4,000 feet above sea level, but some of the park is even higher. The air is crisp, and the temperature is very comfortable.

This was some interesting scenery along the way.



This is one of our views from our site:


Here's another direction:
And, from across the street, the Discovery and the Phaeton:

We gave Karon one of our 2-way radios to keep with her on the way. We were in the lead. We had a good time talking back and forth about our next stops and interesting tidbits about the scenery. I didn't realize until it happened, but we're now in Mountain Daylight Time. I checked the map and found that the corner of South Dakota we'll be spending some time in is also MDT.

Our drive took about 5 hours. We traveled 217 miles and got 7.0 mpg. Our fuel efficiency was hampered by severe wind and a lot of hills. We topped off our tank with 39 gallons of fuel at 4.649 per gallon.

We paid for 2 nights here, but we may end up staying a couple more days. The camping fee is $15 per night, but on top of that, we had to pay $4.00 per vehicle per day for Nebraska State Park fees. We could have purchased 2 annual passes for $20 each. I haven't tried to make any phone calls yet, but we do have satellite TV and internet, so I'm a happy camper.

I think tomorrow we'll spend some time exploring the area. What a beautiful place!