Rock Springs, WY to Davenport, IA

Needing a bit of time to reflect and appreciate those wind-driven driving days, while catching up with laundry today I'll complete the postings of our awesome 5 1/2 week road trip.

We left Rock Springs early on Wednesday, Sept 1st after failing to find a shop where we could get a much needed oil change in the Winnebago. By Googling, I found a shop in Rawlins, WY that could get us in after lunch. The guy there was GREAT and we were back on the road knowing much more about the RV. The first photo of this set is just outside Rock Springs and the other two are past Rawlins.

Medicine Bow River













We continued to climb, reaching a high in elevation of 8, 200 feet in Wyoming and spent that night in Laramie, WY.

Laramie River

Leaving Laramie the next morning, Thursday, there was a sign warning of heavy fog but we drove several miles without any sign of it, then...

It began to lift as we approached Cheyenne and was clear by the time we entered that city.

The sun was glistening off the gold dome of the Capitol Building in Cheyenne. From there we retraced a portion of our drive so Cheyenne closed the loop (or knotted the lariat as I amused myself by telling Rich a thousand times!). We had breakfast there at our favorite Perkins Restaurant. If you're ever in Cheyenne be sure to have a meal there. Shortly after breakfast, we crossed into Nebraska.

I loved this sculpture of a howling coyote!














Another worthwhile stop, one that we stumbled on quite by accident which is another great thing about road trips, is Ogallala, Nebraska. This is a very small town with a pretty lake, a Boot Hill cemetery, and most importantly the Petrified Wood Gallery. The Gallery is the far right storefront in the first photo of this set. Eighty-two year old twin brothers, who are lifelong residents of Ogallala, have been collecting petrified wood and making miniature buildings, bird plaques, and western scenes out of shards of petrified wood for over fifty years. Their collection is now housed in this Gallery along with arrowhead collections and art; amazing sandstone scenes that were painted by nature; and globes and eggs tooled from natural stone. The volunteer on duty that day was the delightful Dr. Doug Parks who made the buffalo head from pieces of arrowheads he collected.

We dry camped Thursday night at a Wal-Mart in Grand Island, Nebraska (thanks Wal-Mart for allowing this at most of your stores!). This next set includes Friday morning photos of the Platte River, a beautiful river that Meanders along for many miles and has fingers that splay in many directions so we crossed it a multitude of times across Nebraska. We drove through Omaha on our way into Iowa.

Omaha, Nebraska

Western Iowa was a surprise to me. The land is so hilly that farmers have terraced or stepped the land to make it tillable, which also makes for beautiful farm and crop scenery. I do hope you can see the steppes in the fields in these photos.

As mentioned in a previous post, we spent Friday night on the road near Davenport, IA. What I did not mention is that there was a Machine Shed Restaurant less than two miles from our RV Park. We have eaten at this one before, as well as the Rockford and DesMoines locations, and the food is good home cookin' delicious. What an exciting surprise that was for our last evening...and returning "home" from dinner we were treated to that glorious sunset, that I'm posting here again. A perfect evening!

                                     

Lovin' Life ~~ and the Surprises of Travel!

  Bev