Strolling Amok

Stromsburg Heaven

The entrance to Buckley Park, Stromsburg, Nebraska.

“Town park campgrounds are like a box of choc-lits…”, and Mr. Gump would have been impressed with this one. Stromsburg, Nebraska is about 20 miles north of I-80, which violates my fuel usage rule for distance out of the way. “Don’t save $5 on fees by burning $10 worth of fuel to get there.” But the call of this one was irresistable: Free for up to 7 days, with an electrical hookup included in that price. Yes, you read that right. With the office battery pack down 25% and the ability to run A/C, I can stay cool and recharge whatever I like with my 8-amp plug-in charger. This camp is especially good because a heat wave is moving in, and my next stop, North Platte, is supposed to hit 100 degrees tomorrow, with 99 to follow. My next stop, Buford, Wyoming, is at 8,000′ elevation and will be in the 70s. Stops after that are warmer because they’re lower in elevation.

The Enterprise is way back there on the left, under some big shade trees.

So, I’m thinkin’, such as you may choose to call it. I don’t mind driving in hot weather, and neither does the Furd. But I don’t like sweating on faux velour furniture in high heat and humidity, especially with the camper’s mediocre cross ventilation. Short drives with long camps suddenly don’t have the appeal they did before, if temps are obnoxiously high. I’m trying to get to the Bonneville Salt Flats to watch some land speed record attempts that begin next Thursday (weather permitting). I have an extra day built into my travel itinerary, and was going to spend it near Green River, Wyoming in order to be sure to see some wild horses au naturale. Now I’m thinking I should spend 2-3 days here, maybe bypassing North Platte’s heat entirely with a 7-hour drive. I know, easy for you. But driving this pig is a little more involved and more wearing.

At any rate, I’ll be walking into town tomorrow morning to mail a large eBayed box to a PITA buyer, so I’ll be rid of the last of it and have some space. Maybe look for a hardware store to get four of those L-brackets to tie the nice maple dining table to the floor. (I found that it’s so top-heavy that positively fastening it to the floor would be a really good idea.) I’ll photo and post later about tearing out the OEM table and one bench, and why. While I’m strolling around town, I’ll take some holiday snaps and post them here. I was going to do all that today, but there have been intermittent sprinkle-dinkles and I don’t want the shipping carton to get wet. Want to see exactly where I am? Instead of a street address, copy and paste “41.10836, -97.59881” into Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) without including the quotation marks.