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After Cheyenne, we started our journey back to the midwest for my nephew's wedding in Kansas. Before getting to Kansas, we made plans to stop in Elkhorn to see my father and stepmother, and after that Griswold to see Mac's dad and extended family.

North Platte, Nebraska

Our first stop was North Platte, Nebraska. We pulled into the park in the late afternoon. The area was shady and pleasant, and fairly empty. We arrived with just enough time for us to set up our site, for me to load up the mountain bike and head 45 minutes down the road to what seemed to be the only mountain biking in the entire state, a place called Potter's Pasture.

The drive to Potter's Pasture was very scenic and beautiful, with the full colors of Fall just starting to come through the trees that lined both sides of the highway. As I drove along, I kept an eye out for any obvious signs of a trailhead, certain I would likely drive right by it at least once before locating it. However, the makers of this trail system made sure that would not happen, as the entrance was very clearly marked by a large sign and hanging bicycle.

After unloading my bike I found to my unpleasant surprise that I had neglected to reattach my derailleur battery, which meant I would be riding single speed for the entire ride. Thankfully, I had last shifted in a manageable gear and set off into the woods without much issue, although some of the climbs were a bit rough. My reward at the top of each climb was a beautiful view of the sprawling Western Nebraska countryside, just ever so slightly tinged with a hint of the smoke from the western wildfires.

Whoever made this network of trails did so as a labor of love - that much was extremely clear. The dual-purpose mountain biking and cattle trail expertly meandered through a combination of pine-needle forests and open grass meadows, winding up and down steep hills with wide switchbacks meant for mountain bikers. At many points there were detailed signage posted with route details and current location, although they were long faded and showing their age. I could only imagine how much fun the original trail builders had creating this area!

A few other clues were offered as to the age of the trails. The photos I had previously found online of substantial and impressive wooden downhill features were found to be long-ago abandoned, rotted out thoroughly, and blocked off with a tattered police tape ribbon discouraging anyone from riding. If only I had found this place 10 years ago, I could have experienced it as the original builders had intended.

Electrical Issues?

When I finished up the ride, as usual I phoned home to report my departure, and was told about some "electrical issues" that were occuring in the the trail... portending an extensive rabbit-trail of technical issues that will be discussed in the next article.

When I arrived back, I found that our dual inverter Victron Multiplus 3000 setup was returning overheating errors, caused by an extremely high load for multiple hours (convection oven, three ACs, the washer and clothes dryer) which quickly made me realize we must not be running off of shore power. I found that the batteries were still above 50 percentage, which was impressive in its own right given how much they were powering in the rig. I also discovered that although we were pulling from shore, our system was only recognizing one of the legs of the 50amp service - so the other half was getting supplemented by our battery bank and inverter system.

I first thought the issue was with the pedestal at the campground, but after having a maintenance person test the outlet with a multimeter, we confirmed that both legs seemed to be pushing out 120V. I then thought maybe it was an issue with our cord or inverter, and by the kindness of the next door neighbor we tested that theory using his extension cord and pedestal, only to find that the issue persisted. At this point I was baffled and started an extensive online search to see what the issue might be. One clue I found was that someone had anecdotally reported that in some RV parks, the wiring may be out-of-code and a dual inverter system might not properly recognize it. Given that we were only staying one night, I made the decision to hope for the best and see what happened when we got to our next destination.

More on the electrical issues and the fix here.

Gretna KOA, Camp Chris, Camp Kenny

After North Platte we stopped over at the Gretna KOA, on the western edge of Omaha, Nebraska. Honestly, I don't know why we came back to this campground, as our first experience here was less than pleasant, and this time proved to be more of the same. The curt site-guide took us to our extremely tiny site, and by some miracle we barely were able to fit. Because of the extremely narrow sites, hooking up our utilities meant walking literally through our neighbor's family gathering. All that being said, the kids had a great time here as the park was hosting a large number of Halloween activities including hay rides, trick-or-treating, and a glow stick parade. On the plus side, the electrical issues we experienced at North Platte were no longer occurring, so for the moment I put it out of my mind (which as fate would have it, this would prove to be only a temporary reprieve).

While at Gretna we still managed to get in a hike at Chalco Hills State Recreation Area which was about 15 minutes from where we were staying. The weather was hot, but a strong breeze kept the humidity down and the view at our turnaround point was nicer than would be expected at a lake in the middle of a city.

After Gretna, we continued over to "Camp Chris", which was dry camping at my dad's house near Elkhorn, Nebraska, and after that dry camping at "Camp Kenny" near Griswold, Iowa.

Peculiar, MO and Clinton Lake State Park, KS

As the days until my nephew's wedding grew increasingly near, we left Camp Kenny and continued towards Kansas. There aren't a lot of options for campgrounds near Kansas City, so we opted to stay at a place in Peculiar, Missouri. The weather preceding and after the day of the wedding was extremely cold and windy, but just like our own October wedding so many years ago, the day of this wedding was also perfect and pleasant, with the sun streaming down through entirety of the outdoor ceremony.

After the wedding, we moved out to Clinton Lake State Park, a place we have stayed a number of times before, including most recently as our launching point before heading out on this year's adventure.

There was one unexpected hitch with our stay at Clinton. Although we were fully aware of the "no sewer hookups" constraint, one thing were not made aware of until our arrival was the fact that the water would be shut off almost immediately after our arrival for the season... which meant we would be dry-camping for almost two full weeks! This proved to be not the end of the world, but an inconvenience to the say the least - with a family of five, there is a lot of water usage, even with mindful conservation. We ended up having to re-hookup and drain/refill our water 3 times during our stay. It was a good experience as it showed us that our comfort level for such conditions is about a week. 

It was wonderful spending time with family and friends while in town, and although we were eager to hit the road to get back to our adventure, family always comes first and we would not have missed the wedding for anything. Our nomadic lifestyle makes such trips a mere detour on route to other destinations, another fact for which I am very grateful.

Flat Tire on the Ford F350!

Another eventful experience was Mac getting a flat tire on our truck while getting groceries, on the side of busy Interstate 435 in the near-heart of Overland Park, KS. My brother and I arrived and started the process of changing out the tire, only to find after removing the lug nuts that it was completely stuck! After a quick internet search and a call to Mac's brother, who has the same truck, we found that this is a common issue on larger trucks and that the process for removal involves either whacking the rim back and forth with a mallet, kicking it from the rear site (not recommended while on a tiny jack on the side of the interstate), or putting the lug nuts back on partially and driving the vehicle forward and backwards until the wheel releases. We ended up doing a combination of the mallet (by way of a helpful roadside state helper vehicle person) and rocking methods which eventually got the job done, and in short order we were back underway with our spare tire. My brother gave us a lead on his "tire guy" and we even got the tire plugged and picked up before heading back to Clinton!

Unfortunately, the plugged tire was not inflated to the proper level, which was only discovered after putting it back on the next morning at the campground. All was not lost, as I got in my workout in by filling the tire from 40 PSI to 80 PSI with my bike pump! It only took about 10 minutes and a couple thousand pumps, but it got the job done. Also afterwards, completely unrelated to this experience, I ordered a VIAIR pump on Amazon.

Heading South for Winter!

Next up - heading to Arizona (and more on the above-alluded-to electrical issues...).

Activity Summary