Saying Goodbye to Mike and Terri

(North Platte, NE) Hi 98 Lo 67 -- Our good friend Jerry in North Carolina encouraged us in an email to see North Platte, Nebraska on our way west. He's a rail fan and he said the Bailey Rail Yard is something we should see. So we adjusted our plans and left Hastings RV Park a day earlier than planned.

We hated to leave Mike and Terri, but we can look forward to seeing them again this fall (if not sooner). So after our farewell hugs we headed out to continue our journey west. It was a smooth trip of three hours. We passed the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument. It spans I-80 in Kearney, NE.


We enjoyed watching the elevation change on our GPS as we traveled west. We started at around 1,900 feet elevation at Hastings, and when we arrived at Holiday RV Park in North Platte we'd reached 2,800 feet. The central part of the country, although mostly flat, slowly rises to over 5,000 feet elevation by the time you get to Denver (the mile high city).


We passed a couple of Pony Express Stations on our way.


This area is really neat, and so far I love Nebraska in some ways and doubly like the small towns. They remind me of my childhood days. We wouldn't want to live here, too much cold and snow, and too far from our family.

When we got close to North Platte we started to see a subtle change to the terrain, with a line of low hills in the distance. A sign of things to come!


We arrived at the Holiday RV park about 1:30. It’s a pretty basic park, but ok for the couple of nights that we'll be here.


We got another pull through site. Jim's going to forget how to back up the rig if we keep getting pull throughs. Where were all these sites when we first started out? :)


Some views of our park.






There's a pool here, but we decided it's too hot to be outside. Once we got set up we stayed in the RV to stay cool. We're on 30-amp electric and our main a/c is struggling to cool us down, so Jim decided to see if both a/c's would run at the same time on 30 amps. He switched the water heater and fridge to propane and turned on the second a/c. So far they're both running just fine, and it makes a difference with both running. Cool!

We went out to eat at a little diner just around back of the campground. I hate turning on the (gas) stove when it's this hot. All it does is make the a/c struggle that much more. I guess that’s a great excuse to eat out. :)


We're continuing to monitor the fires in Colorado. We still have a month before we'll be in Colorado Springs, so we have time before we have to decide if we'll have to change our route. The fires are massive and they’ve evacuated the Air Force Academy, where we have a reservation for early August. We’ll see what happens.

Tomorrow should be fun, and we’ll have a lot to report in tomorrow's blog. I love days like that. It’s great having wheels!