Blue Bridges and Horse Trailers

 Location: Lancaster Event Center; Lincoln, Nebraska

I crossed into Nebraska on Saturday. You can tell by the bright blue bridges that span the Missouri River between Nebraska and Iowa on Interstate 680. I like it. I like it a lot. I think I've crossed them before in the past, but am not sure. It is much better than the usual drab silver/grey or putrid green. I don't know why more states haven't done the same thing. You have to paint steel bridges to prevent rusting. Once you're committed to painting, there isn't any additional cost if you want to paint a different color. Wait, I need to revise that since there is a slight cost increase for some colors, but nothing significant. Before I retired, we had a bridge with a upcoming painting project. I received permission from our state headquarters to paint the bridge something other than silver/grey. We got the local media involved and had the public vote on which color to paint the bridge. It turned out Purple was the winning color. Remember, this was in Louisiana, purple and gold are everywhere. But, it was evident I didn't cheat on the poll results because I'm not an LSU fan. My choice was bright Red since the bridge crossed the Red River. Anyway, the project kept getting delayed due to money problems. It was eventually killed after I retired but not because of money. From what I heard, there were some unusual birds roosting under the bridge and the Federal Government stepped in to protect them. I'm not sure of all the details, but that is close enough. The bridge is still rusting away.

Only one travel picture for this post. It was almost perfect driving weather.

The Blue Bridges on I-680 over the Missouri River

As most RV travelers know, holidays in campgrounds ain't fun. They are usually 100% full of weekend campers. They have been preparing for this three day camping trip for months and months and bring enough stuff to stay a month. I think they round up every barking dog from their neighborhood as well as every squeaky bicycle they can find. I asked some parents once if they needed some oil for their child's bicycle that was making a heck of a noise and they said "No". When they saw my puzzled look, they continued, "We like the squeaking because we can tell where in the campground the kids are riding". Yep, everyone in the campground could tell where their little Johnny and Jane were riding. That is, when you could hear the squeaking in between songs blaring from about a dozen boom boxes playing in the campground. Charcoal fires for BBQ'ing, kids laughing, dogs barking, bikes squeaking, songs blaring, etc,,,, yep,,, life in a campground on a holiday weekend. 

If you're an RV traveler, you learn quick to snatch a campground reservation early for a holiday or you may find yourself staying in a Walmart parking lot in 90+ degree temperatures without air conditioning. The problem is that with travelers, we usually don't know where or even which state we will be in for the next holiday so we are sometimes late at making reservations. The State and Federal (COE) parks usually get reserved up first, followed closely by private campgrounds. Over the years, I've found that the last ones to fill up are the State/County fairgrounds. Many fairgrounds have campgrounds that are used by participants and vendors during the events. If there isn't an event going on, the fairground campgrounds rent out their campgrounds which are pretty empty. That is what I thought I was doing for this Labor Day weekend. I couldn't find any COE's with vacancies so I started looking at the fairgrounds. I found one that looked good and was on my southern route. Also, there were a lot of sites to chose from so they must not have an event for that weekend. Or so I thought. I booked a site for the three days of Labor Day weekends and was feeling good about finding a place to hunker down and avoid the regular campground holiday antics. 

When I arrived on Saturday afternoon, just about every site was taken except mine. They were full of RV's and horse trailers. Apparently, there was a horse show scheduled for the weekend and people from across Nebraska had come to the fairgrounds. I squeezed Liberty into my site and hooked up. I was expecting a lot of activity since the campground was full, but to my surprise, it was very quiet. There were a lot of people moving around in the evening, but no BBQ'ing or anything like the typical campground. I had thoughts of visiting the horse show but didn't. I just kept hunkering down until almost everyone left on Monday morning.

Saturday afternoon. Squeezed between a Class A Motorhome and a horse trailer. Neither were any problems.

Monday, about noon. Every horse trailer is gone but a few RV's remain.

Today is moving day and I'll be heading about 200 miles south to a Corps of Engineers campground on Pomona Lake which is a little south of Topeka, Kansas. The route I'm taking is a U.S. highway instead of interstate. Taking the interstate increases the travel distance by 50 plus miles. I thought long and hard about just doing the extra mileage for the sake of getting paved shoulders and four lanes. But, for some reason, I've decide to take the U.S. highway and break another one of my silly rules suggestions. That suggestion is "tow on the Interstates, explore on the Blue Highways." We will see if breaking my ____, comes back to bite me.

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