Another great free campsite!

We left the Gillette Airport at just after 9:00am yesterday. Beautiful blue sky all day long and with a temperature of about 75F (24C), it was just about perfect.

Heading north out of Gillette, it is coal mining country. We had seen the long trains full of coal that run the rails along the highway south of Gillette, and it was interesting to pass by some of the facilities that fill the rail cars.

Heading north through an accident scene

We said our goodbyes to our Boondockers Welcome host and headed out around 9:00am. First stop was the town of Douglas, about 65 miles (104 kms) north.

We actually wanted to stay in Douglas... I had read about a city park where they allow three nights free camping and have a water and dump station. We stopped in to have a look. One other rig there, but a nice park. If we didn't need to put some more miles on, we would have stayed and visited the town. Another time.

Installed our new Winegard RV Internet Antenna

They were calling for a nice day yesterday and our Boondockers Welcome host Sally had generously offered to let us stay a second night, so we decided to take a day off from driving. We'll have to make that up though with a couple of longer driving days because we want to be back at Cabri Regional Park for Sunday, giving us only four driving days to get there.

I took advantage of the beautiful day to get up on the roof and install our new Winegard Connect 2.0 RV Internet Antenna.

A chilly day exploring Cheyenne, Wyoming

Up early, and our Verizon cellular internet ran out and I'm not going to renew it because we're only six more days in the United States. If the price was reasonable, I would... but at $35 USD for 2 GB of data, they can keep it!

So we got up and drove into Pine Bluffs, NE where we parked outside the library and used the free library wifi while sitting in the motorhome and having breakfast.

50 Campsites, and we were the only ones there...

Yesterday, we continued north from Brush, Colorado into Kimball, Nebraska. Kimball is at about 5,400 feet and is very close to the highest point in Nebraska. But the municipal park campground in behind the fairgrounds wasn't the nicest and looked to be on soft ground and they were calling for rainshowers yesterday evening.

We carried on east a little bit to the Oliver Reservoir State Recreation Area where they have about 50 numbered camp sites... and it's totally free!

Who said there's nothing to see?

Sure, the scenery may not be fantastic, but there is still stuff to see if you look for it.

Yesterday, we drove from the Neegronda Reservoir north up to Brush, Colorado. No, it's true that the scenery is not fantastic. But there are still some interesting things to see along the way if you look for them!

It wasn't worth taking the chance...

Yesterday, we drove from Boise City, Oklahoma to a reservoir at the Queens Wildlife Conservation area just north of Lamar, Colorado. I had a few ideas of where we could park for the night, but there was a heavy rainfall the night before and many of the gravel side roads were still pretty soft.

We ended up walking in to what would have been a beautiful spot, but I was worried Sherman would get stuck!

As expected, that was an expensive repair bill...

Well, I had guessed the bill would be around $2,000 USD and it came in at $2,273 USD.

Of course that's hard to swallow, but it really becomes a lump in your throat because we have to pay for it with Canadian dollars... almost $3,000 Canadian dollars!

But, we have spent very little money on Sherman over the years so I suppose we were due for it.

Sherman is almost ready...

The first day they did the transmission service, tightened the power steering belt, installed new front wheel bearings, and new front brake pads. The front pads weren't terrible, but they had the wheels off anyhow so I figured why wait until they are terrible.

Yesterday, they installed the new inner and outer tie rod ends on the driver's side and had a look at the rear brakes. It's not easy with the rear brakes because there is only a little inspection hole unless you take the brake drums off. I told them to take the drums off so we could all have a better look. It's a big job because you actually have to remove the axles. I'm glad we did though.

Jack Sisemore's RV Museum

We left Sherman in the capable hands at S&L Auto and Truck Service in the east end of Amarillo and we took off in the rental car to do some exploring.

First stop was Jack Sisemore's RV Museum.

Into the city of Amarillo... and we picked up a couple of packages for you all...

We weren't in a huge rush to get into the city of Amarillo, but we did want to get there before the winds picked up. That would mean before 10am or so. We were a little later than planned because we filled up with water and stopped at the dump station before pulling out of Palo Duro Canyon State Park

Fortunately, the day started with a bit of a tailwind.

We took the detour, and it was worth it!

Woke up to the wild turkeys gobbling. We got up around 7am, and they were all outside, probably ten of them. The males had their feathers spread wide as they showed off for everybody.

I took some pictures through the window, but only one turned out half decent...

From one state park to the next...

We woke up at Caprock Canyons State Park, and went to sleep last night in Palo Duro Canyon State Park. Yes, making as much use of our Texas State Parks pass as possible.

We didn't have a cell signal at the campsite at Caprock Canyons, so we drove over to the interpretive building where they have free wifi. But as with most campgrounds, the public wifi is either not good to begin with, or if more than two or three people are using it, it's almost not usable. But, from that location I managed two bars of Verizon signal, so between the two managed to get the blog posted yesterday and some internet work done.

We got a nice site in the horse camping area at Caprock Canyons State Park

We were up at 6:00am yesterday morning and on the road at 7:00am in order to drive as much as we could without the wind, which was forecast to increase after 9:00am. And the forecast was pretty accurate in that regard. The winds did pick up, but at least it was a head wind... not great for gas mileage, but at least it was relatively comfortable to drive in.

At least until we got to the town of Turkey. After that, we had a minor problem.

Heat warning on Thursday, wind warning on Friday!

We had planned on leaving Paul's place at 9:00am in order to beat the worst of the winds, but for some reason we were a few minutes later than that. We knew the forecast was calling for wind, but it was supposed to be from the south so we were hoping for a tail wind.

Instead, it came from the west and we had a nasty cross wind that got worse as time went on.