Friday, September 20, 2019

Kickin' my butt...


No, not Joan.  Nor Rufus.  I'm talking about Mother Nature.  It was a bit breeze when we left Ogallala this morning.  Would have been nice if it stayed like that, but instead, Mama Nature cranked the wind up to 11 (not wind speed, btw, it was more like 30 gusting higher) and for fun had it blowing out of the south southeast... with the road curving around terrain, we had every component of cross, quartering, and head wind.  It was ugly.

We did two lane roads again today.  This is a typical Nebraska two lane...


Then, the infamous orange signs...


We waited about 10 minutes for a pilot car, then went down the road.  On the wrong side...


I haven't done this since the teenage days of "blindfold driving."  Yes, I am kidding - I still do that.  The actual construction...


They are putting down oil and chip-seal rock.  As we got close to being through that process, the pilot car turned into the freshly rocked lane... as we all followed, you just know we have gravel stuck to the bottom of the motorhome, then thrown back all over the CR-V and cargo trailer.  Pretty sure they were using us to "pack down" the gravel.

Another hour or so, and we were into Kansas...


For those who think western Kansas doesn't have trees...


And for those who think Kansas doesn't have hills...



It was getting close to Rufus's lunch time, so we stopped in Atwood, KS, at a small park so I could feed him...


 
Then, back to the road, the hills, and the wind...


Speaking of wind - it must be a regular thing here...


I was wearing out, so we plugged in a closer RV park than we originally planned.  According to the website, they are co-located with a travel center.  And, it is an hour and a half closer than where we usually stop in this part of the state.  Passing through the town of Oakley (yes, named after Annie), there is a Buffalo Bill Museum...


And down the road a ways, we saw some actual buffalo, obviously being raised.  And, another part of the western Kansas economy...


We pulled into the (supposed) travel center at Garden City.  Maybe it used to be a travel center, but now it is pretty much a run-down gas station.  You get your RV site at the gas station... from a distance, the RV "park" didn't look like much.  But, once you got up close, you could see that, with a bit of sprucing up, it may elevate its status to: a shit hole.  But, the wind is howling, I am worn out, and it is here.  We got hooked up to electricity... good thing we have some water in our fresh water holding tank, because the water connection at these sites is in a hole in the ground... ours had dirt over the water connection; no way am I hooking that up to our rig.

Fortunately, we were able to pick our own site (after some discussion with the lady in the gas station who really didn't know anything about the RV "park" ("It isn't ours, we just collect the money for it.").  I picked a site that put our nose into the wind.  Not sure what the current wind speed is, but it is howling.  Joan found a couple TV stations on our powered antenna (didn't want to do anything with satellite in this wind).  With the TV turned up and the air conditioning running, you hardly hear the wind or traffic from the nearby Interstate.  This "park" has asphalt sites and concrete sites... $5 difference.  In reality, the asphalt is dirt with a few rocks; and ruts.  The concrete sites look fairly recent, but what they call a "pull through" is actually a double site: rigs back to back, facing different directions.  With our length, there won't be anyone pulling in behind us.  It isn't a big "park" (yes, I keep using quotes around that because I don't consider a shithole to be a park), but is less than half full.  It looks to be a couple overnighters (like us) and a handful of rigs that are obviously going nowhere.

It isn't in the top 10 of places we've stayed (wouldn't make the top 1,000), but we are down for the night and I can give my aching shoulders and neck a break.  And, Rufus is snoozing next to me.  It's all good.

Hoping for less wind tomorrow.


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