And so we headed for McCook, Nebraska where we had read about a free campground that even had a washroom and shower building.
When we drove out of the Clear Creak waterfowl area yesterday morning, we saw this sight...
Mom and little one.
It was a nice drive. We stopped in Ogallala and found an unsecured wifi signal at the local library. The tourist office was closed. They left the wifi showing an open signal, but it wouldn't connect to the internet. It always makes me laugh when tourist offices are closed on weekends. That's when most people are traveling!
I searched gasbuddy.com and found a station in Ogallala that was $2.179 a gallon. All the other stations in the are were $2.279. So we got there, and the sign said "Regular gas at pumps 9 and 10 only". The place was pretty busy, but I got Sherman aligned to go in to pump 9. While waiting, I ran inside just to confirm that I could only buy regular gas at those two pumps.
Yep.
As I went back to Sherman, I checked out the pricing on the other pumps. They had three fuels available. "Plus", "Medium", and "Premium". Sure enough, no regular. And the cheapest was $2.779.
What a scam this guy has going. People are attracted by the cheap price, but most of them miss the fact that they can only get the cheap price at two of the ten pumps. They fill up anyhow, and pay way more than they should.
When I went in to pay, I asked the attendant about this. He laughed and said they've been doing this for years. Many people don't catch on, or simply don't care enough to figure it out. He says he does get the occasional person who pulls in to the more expensive pumps but wonders where the cheap price is. Not many though!
We filled up at the cheap price of $2.179 USD per gallon ($0.80 CAD per litre) and that should get us into north Texas where the price is really cheap.
Passed by this park along the way. Nice waterfront sites, and hardly anybody there. Right beside the highway though.
Pulled in to the Walmart in McCook, Nebraska and did a big grocery shop. Bought a big bottle of "Imported from Canada" whiskey for $12.97 USD ($17.25 CAD). It's aged a whole three years! It's actually not bad watered down with a couple of ice cubes.
Made it to the city park.
Nice.
There are 7 sites. When we arrived, one was occupied with a tent. Sites have 50, 30, and 15 amp electrical outlets, but no sewer or water. There is a dump station though, and two municipal water taps.
And a washroom shower building. To conserve water, we typically just sponge bath when we're traveling on the road, so we figured it would be nice to have a shower. But the facilities were "dated" to say the least. Kind of nasty actually. Why offer something like this, and then not maintain it? We don't get it. Our motto is "you should never be afraid to use a campground bathroom". Too bad many campgrounds don't think the same way.
But, we have water and a dump station available, so we had nice hot showers in Sherman.
Sherman, parked in the shade. It was a hot day!
Karrer Park, Nebraska. GPS 40.197501, -100.606936
By the time we went to sleep, two other RV's had pulled in for the night. Not bad, but we were woken by trains a couple of times.
A nice enough park, and definitely a step up from Walmart camping...but not our style. Too close to both the highway and the railway tracks. It was good to be able to dump and fill, and we were thinking of taking a day off from driving and staying here two nights but with so many nice boondocking sites available along the way, we're moving on again today.
Yesterday's drive, 143 miles (229 kms).
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Top quality Bosch drill and driver set at a great deal, today only.
And in Canada, a great one day deal on a 55" tv...
Trains and campgrounds seem to have some strange affinity for each other. I try to think of the sounds of a train as a lullaby:)
ReplyDeleteYes, they do seem to go together but I'm afraid that neither Kevin nor I can think of them as a lullaby at night when we are trying to sleep. We do like the the sound of them when we are traveling on one though. :-)
DeleteI LOVE the sound of trains! I grew up with them so maybe that's why, but the sound of the clacking and the whistle is just comforting to me. Many small towns in the Midwest have tracks close by. We have traveled through Nebraska twice and both times noticed how "aged" the parks and their facilities are. We stayed in a KOA there that had a pool that looked circa 1960's! And the heat, oh my. Pretty miserable. Happy and safe travels!
ReplyDeleteWe both love traveling on trains and listening to the whistle and the clickety clack of them as we go down the track but not when we are trying to sleep at night in a campground. This campground was good but the main issue was that it wasn't quiet and the bathrooms in our mind were not usable (just not clean) but for free we really can't complain, if we had to pay for it we both would have been very disappointed.
DeleteWe found one of these gas stations in Arizona where the pump price was much higher than the advertised price. I went in and asked and was told the cheap pumps were around the back but "It is not Chevron gas, we buy that gas from a discount distributor." So what! I am not brand loyal. It still took my credit card and we had no problem with the gas. A scam.
ReplyDeleteThat just goes to show that you really need to be paying attention and ready to question them. Glad that you go the gas for the price advertised.
DeleteSure does sound like a scam. Sort of like the big advertising sign with a low price and when you pull in you find that's only available if you pay cash. I don't carry enough cash with me to fill up a motorhome. Glad you found the less expensive price. It's about $1.869 here in Virginia for regular right now.
ReplyDeleteYep, it was definitely a scam unless you were paying attention. We have seen the difference in price between cash and credit before too. When we were in Arizona we found that one station brand did cash only but they were the cheapest so we would make sure ahead of time to have the cash available in order to get that cheaper price. This type of thing doesn't happen in Canada so we always need a few days to get used to the way they do things down here. That's a wonderful price to get the gas at, we are hoping to get that same price once we enter into Texas.
DeleteThe closed tourist center gave me a good chuckle. We ran into that on our four-month trip last summer along with tourist offices that close at 3 p.m. What's that all about? As for the gas scam, can't believe people get away with stuff like that. What a rip!
ReplyDeleteMaybe they are closed at this time of year because they aren't busy enough! Yep, it is amazing that they can get away with it. You certainly need to have your eyes open all the time!
DeleteGreat blog
ReplyDeleteHey Kevin and Ruth. If you make it to SW Oklahoma, there is a nice little city park in a town called Anadarko with some great RV hook ups at 8 bucks a night, with a free dump station.
ReplyDeleteWe will be heading through Oklahoma today but just the tiny little bit in the very northwest part along Hwy #83. Thanks for the recommendation though and if we are ever in the part of Oklahoma on another visit we will remember that.
DeletePretty good marketing at the gas station, some people do not look past the sign.
ReplyDeleteFor years I had a dinner special in my restaurant special Liver and Onion's $4.99, sold like crazy, but hardly anyone bought it from the menu available anytime for $4.79, same meal. Go figure.
Yes, you have to give them credit in their marketing but boy does it ever start to make things confusing.
DeletePeople are certainly funny creatures when it comes to things like that. They think if something is on special then it is a deal. I wonder how many actually caught on to the fact that it was the same price on any other day. ;-)
One year while heading home from a winter in Texas we found what I thought would be a quiet spacious and not very busy Walmart in a small town in central Illinois. We were convinced we had hit the overnighting jackpot. Well, not exactly... Beginning at about 11PM it was fairly constant train whistles and we were partly awake most of the night.
ReplyDeleteIn the morning I looked more carefully at the map. There were 5 tracks going into that town! The land around that town being flat and open allowed the whistles to carry really well.
Nowadays I look carefully at the map before I decide a place is a worthwhile stop.
Yes, you do need to keep things like that in mind when you are boondocking/camping, guess that is one of the reasons that we really like to find places that are out in the middle of nowhere.
DeleteHi Kevin! Where do you typically find all your boondocking sites? We might be full timing for a few months! Thanks, Robin. www.wearetheshaws.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteKevin generally goes to www.ultimatecampgrounds.com first and then to www.freecampsites.net and www.rv-camping.org. When we finds a spot he also checks things out on google street view to see if it can fit us and what kind of shape the road is in as well as looking a reviews of these places on the internet. Hope this helps.
DeleteGoing down on I95 last year I found I found several stations in the south advertising (on Gas Buddy) decent prices but when you got there the credit price was as much as 35 cents over the cash price..
ReplyDeleteWe have also found this out with gas buddy so we now try to remember that when checking out the gas prices.
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