Certain friends have bemoaned, each trip, that they don’t get enough of the nitty gritty details of the everyday travel.
“Sure, we want the highlights, the epiphanies, the challenges…” they say, “…but what about bathrooms and bathing, for example?”
The mundane, daily underscoring the rest, has its own ongoing adventures. Free and safe sleeping is more important than the other stuff. Sometimes, like on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it doesn’t come so easily. Sometimes it’s hard to think ahead and get online to the Couchsurfing site and send out a few requests. Thinking ahead is crucial though. I like to have option 1, 2, and 3 available to me. Like last night coming through southeastern Wisconsin. I had a free campsite listing that seemed perfect, but once I got within a couple of miles, the road it was on was closed for construction. The detour took me in the opposite direction. Plan B was a Walmart, if there was one, in a larger city nearby. But, they didn’t allow overnight parking in their lot. Plan C? Hmmm. By then, it was dark. I drove the residential neighborhoods near the Walmart until I found a series of apartment buildings where a number of cars were also parked on the side street. I read the signs—legal to park overnight. I parallel parked between two other cars, and quickly climbed in the back of my truck and into my sleeping bag. In the morning, up and out. All good. Safe.
But, here in Nebraska, the “city park” phenomenon is starting to show up, like some I stayed in while driving across North Dakota a year ago. Small rural town centers with small grassy city parks on the Main Street, or nearby. This one has picnic tables, some under a pavilion, some not. A swing set. Volleyball nets on a sandy plot. Two concrete pads with electrical hookups. A restroom building with a man’s and a woman’s bathroom, each with a shower—with HOT water. What? Oh, my.
Showers are few on the road. Mostly it’s dumping air temperature water over my head, and washing my hair, rinsing, conditioning, rinsing, air drying. Sponge bathing out of a bucket with Dr. Bronner’s soap and a bandana. Personal wipes. Lots of hand sanitizer. But, a hot shower? Heaven.
The sign states that the first three nights are by voluntary donation. The metal box attached to the wall holds envelopes and a slot for depositing some money if one cares to donate. For a hot shower (I didn't use the electrical hookup), I put $5 in the envelope with a note thanking the community of Orchard, Nebraska for their generosity to travelers, especially this one from Vermont.
I haven’t seen these in the Northeast. I didn’t see any along the road in Michigan. Something happens once far enough west. Is it that people share more? Or that the rural folks know about low budget living? Whatever it is, tonight, clean from the shower, I sleep safe. An RV has pulled onto the other concrete pad, an older couple from New York based on the license plate. We waved as the driver backed in next to me, but we didn’t speak.
The sun is setting behind the row of Main Street houses and the 90’s temperatures are slowly blowing away from the steady cool breeze drying my hand washed hiking socks and underwear. Hot water. Today’s mundane details have worked themselves out.
I have my plastic pee bucket washed out and ready for the night, so I don’t have to navigate my way to the restroom building. No need to be “stealth”, so I’ll write and read by the glow of my solar lantern hanging in the back of my truck. And in the morning, who knows, maybe another quick shower to start the next leg of the journey. Nebraska highway 275, then Rt 20 the rest of the way to the town of Valentine from Norfolk: The Cowboy Trail rails to trails path for biking and hiking. I hope to find a section that doesn’t parallel the highway for my biking pleasure.
Ghost Trails
After studying the Cowboy Trail interactive map, I find a section that veers off from paralleling the road. No one is riding the trail today as I watch the sandy trail on one side of the road or the other travel with me. Each small town on the route pulls me through until I reach the one section that fans out to the other side of the Elkhorn River. I turn left onto the gravel road to the sign stating that "this section of the trail is closed until further notice". Maybe the Elkhorn has flooded it out during the spring thaw. I continue on, stop for a chicken pesto grilled cheese sandwich at the Range Cafe in Bassett, then drive through more agribusiness corn fields, hay fields, and dairies.
Once in Valentine, I spot a parking lot for the Cowboy Trail Recreation Area and pull in. The sly syllables, basking in the air conditioned breeze blowing out of the truck cab vents convince me it would be fabulous to work my leg muscles along the flat bike path through the “Sandhills” surrounding the town of Valentine. Bridges over the Niobrara River. Grasslands and wildflowers. But what do they know?
I pull out my bike, attach the front wheel, and load up on water in several bottles stuffed into my daypack. My sunhat, some sunscreen, and my camera. Ready to go. I am so ready for this after all that driving.
Maybe one mile. Maybe not even that. I ride over the bridge, take some pics, and pedal under the heat of the sun, the air thick with heat, the ground bouncing heat back up at me. Hardly any shade. What the hell am I thinking?
Flushed, I guzzle a ton of water and turn around. I ride, then walk, then sit in any small shadow of any bush I can find in order to cool down. Once back at the truck, I hop inside, turn it on and blast the AC at my face. Lesson learned: don’t trust cool syllables talking nonsense about the outside heat.
Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge
About seven miles out of Valentine, the Niobrara River snakes through the grasses of what used to house Fort Niobrara, a frontier military outpost set up to keep peace between settlers and the Sioux Indians, and to control cattle rustlers and horse thieves. Thanks to Teddy Roosevelt, the area became a preserve in 1912.
As I cool down from my AC while I drive the auto road through the Refuge, I keep watch for the 350 bison and and 70 elk who roam here, maybe some burrowing owls, grouse, and prairie dogs.
Dark clouds anvil their way up high in the sky to the east. Perhaps the bison and elk are hunkering in under trees to shield themselves from the approaching storm. I see none. No owls. No grouse. But, those prairie dogs are busy chomping on grasses as I drive the road through their mounds.
Save the Sandhills
Facts:
*The Sandhills are grass covered sand dunes that stretch across northern and central Nebraska, supporting the largest mixed grass native prairie in North America.
*Over thousands of years, the hills were formed when sand deposited by rivers were carried and sculpted by wind.
*Groundwater has seeped up through the sand to form marshes and lakes that support a variety of wildlife.
*Agribusiness mono-crops destroy the prairie habitat: Save the Sandhills signs preach at many ranch entrances along Highway 83 between Valentine and North Platte in the south.