Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Checking out WMAs in Nebraska

WMA: Wildlife Management Area.

So, long day driving the URRV today.  The plan had been for a short day of driving and boondocking at the Twin Lakes WMA near the town of Bassett, NE.

However, once I got within 5 miles of it, the road became loose sandy dirt, not great for a RV as you might imagine.  Heck, I would have had reservations on some of the spots about using the Ural!  Still, I was committed once I started down this road as there was no way to turn the URRV and trailer around, not without surely getting stuck.

4.5 tense miles later, I made it to the MWA, only to find Extended 1x signal for Verizon.  So, the site wasn't usable by me for work.  Not a bad site overall though, space for 2-3 big RVs anyways.

So, another 4.5 (less tense, but still a bit worrisome) miles later, we were back on pavement and headed south to the next candidate boondocking site.

These were the Blue Hole West and East WMAs.  Blue Hole West was basically just a boat launch with a small cul-de-sac for parking or car camping I suppose.  The URRV would have taken up a lot of room.

Then, after getting lost for a bit due to user error on my part, I found the site for Blue Hole East.  Narrow trail leading up to a small parking area surrounded by private property.  Crappy signal, 1 bar LTE but not usable for work.  Sigh, and this was pretty close to the I-80 highway too.

So, number 4 candidate was the Dogwood WMA, but Waze, my GPS app failed to route me correctly (and I failed to check it beforehand), leading me instead in a 52 mile loop (26 miles to next exit and back) on the I-80 Super Slab before I realized the mistake.

I did end up locating the right route but was now tired and I just headed west instead to the next WMA located close to I-80.

WMA #5 proved to be the charm.  Located just south of the town of Cozad, NE.  Easy access and no one camping.  Got myself a primo spot by the pond:


The first two sites one comes to had OK cellular data signal but this site was four bars and high speed.  Just what the doctor ordered.

Flowers along the hiking trail nearby.

As you can see, thick overcast skies overhead.  No sign of the sun.  Hopefully it'll be a clear day tomorrow.  I am within 5 hours of home, and plan to arrive there sometime around Noon on Friday.

Thursday, I'll just work from Cozad WMA, perhaps visit the nearby (15 miles) Museum of Military Vehicles in Lexington.

2 comments:

RichardM said...

Maybe for some of these boondocking sites it would be worth unloading the Ural to explore. But the last site looks pretty nice. And you’re there for a couple of days too...

redlegsrides said...

The WMAs I saw today were pretty small, surrounded by farmlands so recon by Ural didn’t seem warranted....