The Rockies In View Tomorrow

Location: Windmill State Recreation Area (el. 2050 ft); Gibbon, Nebraska

All pictures taken with Nokia Lumia Icon 929 Cell Phone
Click pictures to enlarge

There isn't much to this campground. It appears the state of Nebraska built a park and campground around some small lakes, which appear to be old borrow pits used to build I-80. My campsite is a little tight and I used two rows of block under the right wheels. I could have used three, but this will be OK for the short time I will be here. 

Campsite at Windmill SRA. Not one of the best I've seen

The campground hosts does a little aluminum can magic

As I said in my last post, this stop is just a lay-over until there is a vacancy in a campground that I've stayed at before in Loveland, Colorado.

Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be seeing the Rocky Mountains again. The last time I saw them was when I left Glacier National Park in May of last year. It will be good to see them. I have been traveling Interstate 80 since I left Indiana. 

Fields along I-80 with a lonely billboard

Nebraska corn along a country road as I rode around.

Grain elevators about every 20 to 30 miles. They are like mileposts along the highways and mark every town.

The Platte River. It is a shallow but wide river with a reliable water source which is why the pioneers followed it west.

When I entered Iowa a few days ago I-80 started roughly following parts of the old Mormon and Oregon Trails. As I've been driving across Iowa and now Nebraska, I often think of those adventurous people who packed everything they owned in a wagon or on a horse and headed west into the unknown. If they averaged 20 miles per day, it would have taken them a month to cross what is today Iowa and Nebraska. Today, Iowa is rolling hills of corn fields and Nebraska is flat with those same corn fields. But back then it was wide open prairie. Even from the top of a hill they would have only been able to see a few miles to the next hill. Everything would have looked the same, day after day, week after week. But then one day, someone would have shouted, "I see mountains ahead". Those mountains would have been the Rocky Mountains and those pioneers that continued across them would learn to love and hate them. Tomorrow, a little after noon, I'll see them and will say to myself, "I see mountains ahead". 

This picture is from June 25, 2015 when I put the Rockies in my side mirrors as I left Glacier National Park.

Tonight I sleep in the flat land of Nebraska but tomorrow I will sleep at the base of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. 

Ya'll take care of each other. I'll Cya down the road.