Saturday - Day 3

Today's travels - North Platte, NE to Cheyenne, WY

Nebraska’s topography is changes across the state, probably the same as many states. At the east end it was very similar to what we have in central Missouri and in Crossville. Toward the center the terrain leveled off and you could see tree lines 5-10 miles away, because the fields being farmed were flat and treeless. The entire state, at least the southern part where we are traveling, gains elevation as you travel west. As I mentioned yesterday, the elevation of Nebraska City, at the far eastern end of the state, is about 1,000’ while the elevation of North Platte, located maybe 65% of the way to the western edge of the state, is about 2,500’. The elevation of Kimball, Nebraska, near the western border is about 4,700’. We are spending the night in Cheyenne, WY. Cheyenne is about 40 miles from the Nebraska border. The elevation of Cheyenne is a little over 6,000’.

When we left North Platte we decided we had enough of Interstates for a while. We drove US30 from North Platte to the WY border. It is one of the best roads I’ve driven on it a long time. With only a few exceptions it is very smooth. There is no traffic. I drove 65 mph, the speed limit. I was passed by only 4 vehicles in 180 miles. We met an eastbound vehicle maybe an average of every 1 or 2 miles.

We saw lots of corn, beans, sunflower fields & alfalfa(it was hay, we think it was alfalfa). We saw several cattle feed lots with over 1,000 cattle in each, plus several smaller feed lot operations. We also saw cattle in pastures. A wild guess would be that the density of cattle is pasture areas was no more than 1 cow per 2 acres. At one farm, probably a place set up to provide hay or silage to one of the cattle feeding operations, it appeared that a pile of big round bales was on fire. It looked like someone had tried to spread the stack of hay out. A fire truck was there working on the fire. We have seen a few of the large power generating windmills, but only a few.

We have travelled about 750 miles since leaving Centertown Thursday morning. We averaged over 10 mpg today even with the 3,500’ elevation change. Overall fuel economy so far is 10.6 mpg. We paid $2.44/gal for fuel in North Platte & $2.75/gal in Pine Bluff, WY. At the major truck stops fuel seems to be averaging $2.95 if purchased with a debit or credit card. We haven’t seen any priced at $3/gal….yet.

We had a couple of nice rain showers this morning before we left the campground in North Platte. We drove through one very brief shower near the Nebraska/Wyoming line. Mid afternoon the thermometer on my truck said the temperature was 91. On the other side of the rain shower it registered 69, but climbed back up into the 80’s later. The low here is supposed to be 60 tonight. It would be good sleeping weather but we had to close the windows and turn on the AC because there are so many barking dogs with RV’ers. Seems to me that if you want to take your dog with you that is fine, as long as you keep the thing quiet. (I may be prejudiced. Most of you know I am not a fan of dogs, especially yappy barking dogs.)

Kathy tried to take a couple of photos of one of the cattle feedlot operations. It’s to late to try and get the photos off her iphone. I’ll try to remember to get them and if they are any good will post them later.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.