Uraling to the Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles

During my lunch hour today, I rode Scarlett about 15 miles down from the the nearby town of Cozad, NE to the town of Lexington, NE.

It's the home of the Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles.  Not a big museum but a nice collection of military vehicles, most from the U.S., but with a few here and there from WWII Germany and this one motorcycle from Great Britain:

 BSA W-M20

 Kawasaki Military KLR 250-D8

Military designation: M1030

 German Army Schwimm-Wagen Type 166

Amphibious version of the Kuebelwagen

With a life expectancy of 4 weeks, very few survived WWII

Airborne Scooter

Cushman Model 53

 M3 Bradley CFV 

Cavalry Fighting Vehicle

 The cramped interior of the CFV

 The Mule 

designed late in WWII but deployed in Vietnam

here carrying a 106mm Recoiless Rifle

 M16 Halftrack with a quad .50 caliber gun assembly.

Designed as an anti-aircraft weapon, it was deadly against

ground troops as well.

There was a large assortment of Jeep models, belonging to all the services, but am showing just one here:

 The M151A2 model which was the one I rode in as a 

young Lieutenant back when there were still two Germanies.

 DUKW 

Amphibious Truck

I bet this would be a fun vehicle to have around.

 M2 Bradley IFV

Infantry Fighting Vehicle.

 M4A3 Sherman with a 90mm Cannon I believe

 M110A2 8" Self-Propelled Howitzer.

I trained with one of these in the Artillery Basic Officer Course.

Took two of us to manhandle the shell next to the breech!

As I headed back to the URRV to resume work, I stopped at this marker:

Apparently the town of Cozad was established along the 100th Meridian.  and they make sure you know it here in Cozad.  More info here:  LINK

The 100th Meridian has been considered the dividing line where east meets west. It has also been known as the dividing line between the moist portion of the eastern half of the United States and the dryer western half.  Source

The original sign placed by the Union Pacific Railroad alerted passengers 

that they were crossing the 100th Meridian

source: LINK

And, here's the sunset for the last evening of boondocking for this trip, I return home tomorrow.

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.

Boondocking at the Mulberry Bend MWA, Nebraska

I rode out of North Dakota soon after 8:30AM and headed straight south and through South Dakota using the I-29 Super Slab.  Boring ride as expected.

Exited at the exit for Vermillion and Yankton and soon was setting up camp south of Vermillion, just across the Missouri River, along the shore in Nebraska's Mulberry Bend State Wildlife Management Area.

The boat launch at the WMA, that's the Missouri River

in the background

 Tonight's campsite

Spent the rest of the day with paperwork and a couple of chores involving the URRV.  Also doing some research on tomorrow's boondocking site.  I plan to make my way back to the SW corner of Nebraska by Thursday afternoon; leaving me a 4 hour ride home on Friday Morning.

Then it was time to catch the sunset.  It wasn't too bad though the sun itself dissapeared into smoky haze as it approached the horizon.

RV Camping in Seward, NE

After reluctantly leaving the East Sutherland WMA ( it was such a nice spot), I explored other WMAs as I headed east on I-80 and parallel county roads.

Didn't find any, among the four I checked, that compared to East Sutherland and one apparently didn't exist as I ended up intruding on private property.  Probably the way the Waze GPS app routed me but there you go.

So I drove on, through a pretty heavy rain storm which washed away the dust accumulated on the vehicles while exploring WMAs but soaking the bag containing the solar panels box.  I'm beginning to think the concept of carrying them in the trailer under the parked rig might need more work.

Found a spot in a camp ground in the city of Seward, NE.  The city bills itself as The Fourth of July City since its known for its festivities on that holiday.  I found a standard small town, with the county seat right in the center square:

Seward is also home to Nebraska's Concordia University:

and finally, the last thing that caught my eye was the steeple tower belonging to the Saint Gregory the Great Seminary that one can see as one rides into town from the south:

The campground has electric power but no water.  There is a common use dump station nearby which I'll use tomorrow morning on my way out.  Doing good on water so the lack of it at the campground was no big deal.

It's nice to have power though.  Too overcast for the solar panels and I didn't want to run the generators you know?

I did manage to clumsily trip over my tripod's legs as I was moving about the campground though.  Tweaked some muscle(s) in my lower right quadrant of my back, right above the right hip. 

I asked Martha to bring the Flexaril which I managed to not pack.  Martha is flying in this Friday into St. Paul, MN and driving down to Holmen, WI where I will meet her and where the family reunion will take place Saturday afternoon.

Tonight's camp site....I chose to not include

the other RVs and trucks nearby.  

Perhaps its just me, but the campground wouldn't have been first choice.  Not crowded but some of the units here look a tad "decrepit".  Oh well, it's only for the night.

Boondocking in Western Nebraska

Yesterday, Monday the 13th, I started driving Uma, the URRV, pulling Scarlett on the trailer, headed to Wisconsin for Martha's family reunion this coming weekend.

Martha will, due to work, fly out on Friday and I'll meet her in Holmen, WI.

After almost 7 hours of driving, didn't get very far.  Made it to the vicinity of the town of Hershey, NE and found a nice boondocking spot at the East Sutherland WMA or Wildlife Management Area.

There's a lot of these WMAs strung along the I-80 Super Slab.  Though a bit noisy due to its proximity to I-80, the spot I found couldn't be better really.

Boondocking at a WMA in Nebraska

The rest of the day was spent working on stuff, and dealing with one small crisis at work which apparently resolved itself before we got too deep into it.  I'll take it!

After dinner, I headed out with Scarlett to catch a very nice Nebraska Sunset:

A couple, both on motorcycles, showed up after sunset and set up a tent at a spot by the small lake nearby.  I rode over to introduce myself, and met with Travis and Rachel.  Didn't stay long as they were still getting set up.

That's it for tonight.