Cruisin’ through the heartland

After Memorial Day in Oklahoma, late May found us on our northward trek, with stops in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota. We keep to ourselves for the most part, except for the weekly forays into a grocery store or Walmart (I’m not sure how we would have survived without Walmart!).

One week before we were to arrive at Elk City State Park on Elk City Lake in Kansas, we got a call from a woman with the Kansas State Parks, telling me she had to move us from the campsite I had reserved because they’d had a lot of rain and “your site is under 20 feet of water.” Well, we kind of assumed she may have been exaggerating just a little. Turns out she wasn’t. Here is the condition of the campsite she moved us to:

And here is where I made our original reservation (yes, that’s a fire ring in the foreground, and the skinny poles in the distance are light poles for hanging lanterns… at your campsite… at night.

And after another day of rain, even this fire ring was under water.

When the weather finally turned pleasant, we couldn’t wait to put into this lake, and while Bubba threw out his fishing lines, I wandered around seeing what I could see. Where I was raised (Michigan), water levels didn’t change much as a rule. After nearly 40 years in Colorado, where reservoirs flooded frequently from the mountains’ spring snow melt, I still find flooded lakes fascinating:

That flat thing in the middle is a picnic table.
Tiny stream of water drizzling down this rock face from the saturated land above the cliff. There were many of these on the cliff face.
Irony is officially dead.
Looking back at the unflooded portion of the campground
Road? What road? This is a great kayak launching point!
Eerily beautiful, but sad to think if the trees stay saturated too long, they’ll die

But it made for some good fishing, as Bubba anchored for several hours and caught lots of catfish…

Time to move on, and after the soaking we got in Kansas, wallowing beside a mud pit at our campsite, it was actually a joy to come to Nebraska City, NE, for a quick stopover to dry out at this beautiful RV Park.

It was very close to Council Bluffs, IA, home to good friends and Colorado Parrot Head Club founders, Todd and Maureen! Though we were so disappointed that Maureen couldn’t break away from work, we spent a great afternoon with Todd seeing the fascinating sights of Council Bluffs, including:

Todd and Bubba at the Golden Spike (yes, that’s a railroad spike) 🙂
Here’s the story
The Bregant House
Check it out
Lincoln stood here!
Really. Look here
What a great lookin’ bunch!
Council Bluffs never looked so good!

Alas, we had to continue ever northward, so it was back and forth across the Missouri River as we made our way towards the Nebraska-South Dakota border.

Near Nebraska City, NE
At Yankton, SD, before crossing back into NE

We rolled on to this beautiful Corps of Engineers (COE) Lewis & Clark State Recreation Area in northern Nebraska, with a lake formed from damming the Missouri River. Lewis & Clark Lake was just beautiful, and we’ve found that COE parks are some of the nicest in the country, and reasonably priced.

Overlooking the lake
Out our back window
Lovely empty campground (for now)

We spent time relaxing and doing a bit of kayaking, though this lake is so huge that a windy day is not the best time to be on it in a kayak!

Bluffs across the lake

But it was a beautiful place, as these gorgeous sunsets prove:

We really enjoyed our stay here under the mesquite and elm trees, but moving ever onward, we headed for a place we had really been looking forward to, the Badlands of South Dakota. We didn’t quite know what to expect, but this road shot gave us a good idea of what we were going to see, an odd mix of prairie grass and desert-looking rock formations:

Heading into Badlands National Park

The Badlands, up close (a slideshow):

So the background changes but we still look the same (I hope!)

Stay tuned for our next blog post, as we spent a wonderful four days with our dear friends Wayne and Suzy, affectionately known as WaSu, near Rapid City, South Dakota and Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and even Devil’s Tower! Whooohooo! What fun we had! Pics to come…

Stay safe and stay healthy, everyone!