Our RV Adventures

After sleeping late, we had our coffee, OJ, muffins and a quiet morning, talking about what we wanted to see while we were here, and also our schedule for the rest of this trip.

We did some shifting around, dropping a couple of stops, and adding to a couple of others. The main one we dropped is a stop in Waco for a couple of days so Jan could visit The Silos and Magnolia Market of Chip and Joanna Gaines of HGTV’s ‘Fixer Upper’. But we decided to do that as a day trip up from the Colorado River TT when we’re there.

I also got our reservations for the Riverside RV Resort in Bartlesville, OK so we can visit Ree Drummond’s Mercantile in nearby Pawhuska, OK.

About 1pm we headed out to visit the Golden Spike Tower and the Bailey Yard, something that I’ve wanted to do for a good while. And Jan was looking forward to it too.

But on our way, we first scouted out the station that I found on Google Maps Street View yesterday, and it looks like we’re good to go when we leave here on Wednesday.

It has separate diesel pumps on the right side and plenty of room to get in and out, as well as hitching up the toad. Even better, as I said, they also have the cheapest diesel around at $2.25 a gallon.

The 100ft, Golden Spike Tower is visible from a long distance on the flat countryside so it was easy to find.

There are two observation decks here, an open balcony on the 7th floor, at 83 feet, and the 8th floor, an enclosed deck at 95 feet. Admission was only $6 each for us seniors, so a nice deal.

The stats for this place are amazing. With over 315 total miles of track, the Bailey Yard stretches over 8 miles from end to end and covers over 2,800 acres.

The yard handles about 155 trains a day, with over 70 of them coal trains, totaling over 10,000 railroad cars.

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The Diesel Repair Shop handles over 750 locomotives a month, with each doorway leading to an area for a different type of repair.

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And here are the finished locomotives lined up and waiting to be assigned to an outgoing train.

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This is the Sand Tower, where sand is loadied into the locomotive’s hopper. The sand is sprayed on the rails right in front of the wheels in cases where, due to rain, ice, or snow, the rails might be slippery.

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This is the fueling area, going through over 14 million gallons of diesel a month. Now I don’t feel so bad about my 150 gallon tank.

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One of the most amazing things here are the two Hump Yards, one for east bound trains and one for west bound ones.

A string of cars are pushed to the top of the hump, a 34ft high hill.

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Then one or two at a time, the cars are released at the top and start to roll down hill.

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As the car(s) come down they are automatically routed through multiple switches and slowed down as necessary by ‘retarders’, i.e brakes along the rails.

At the bottom of the hump, one of over 3000 cars a day, they end up being routed into the correct train, ready to be assigned an locomotive.

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And all that magic is done from this building, the Bailey Yard Conrol Center.

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In this building every one of the 985 switches in the yard can be controlled remotely. Even more amazing is that many of the locomotives moving cars around the yard are also under remote control.

When is why you see signs like these around the yard.

Leaving the Golden Spike Tower we drove around to the backside of the Bailey Yard to get a side shot of the East Hump and the cars rolling down the hill.

Later, after driving around town for a while, we stopped off at Fort Cody, a combination Buffalo Bill Cody Museum and Gift Shop.

After it was right up the road to have dinner at King Buffet, a Yelp 4 Star Chinese Buffet.

And the reviews were certainly accurate.

A good selection, with small portions, constantly changed out, so everything was fresh and hot. Our favorite Hot & Sour Soup was really good, as well as the iced tea.

Even better, with our 10% Senior discount, it was only $7.50 each, plus our drink. If we were going to be here longer, we’d certainly go back.

But tomorrow night’s Italian.

With our stay here in Nebraska, we can now mark that state off on our ‘RV’d In’ list, leaving only Kansas, which
we’ll be able to mark off on Thursday.

Of course, that still leaves Hawaii, which we’ll do as soon as I can find a dry route.

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We slept in this morning, not getting up until about 8am, and then had a leisurely breakfast of orange juice, coffee, and bacon/egg croissant sandwiches.

Since we hadn’t unhitched the truck last night, and didn’t unpack a lot inside the rig, we really didn’t have a lot to do to get ready to roll. We pulled out of the Belvidere KOA about 10, one of the last RV’s still left.

Five miles down the road it was suddenly 11am, when we entered the Central Time Zone once again. We followed 1-90E for about 20 miles till we turned south on US83, heading for North Platte, NE, about 200 miles away.

The first thing we noticed was that as soon as we turned on 83 the road went to crap. And stayed crap for the next 67 miles until we entered Nebraska  Then it was like we flipped a switch over to the Nice, Even Road selection. Then it was smooth sailing for the remaining 125 miles.

Soon after we entered Nebraska we encountered the Sandhills, an area of sand dunes covered in grasslands, that occupies over one quarter of the state.

There have been unsuccessful attempts to farm parts of the Sandhills since the 1870’s, some lasting until the early 1900’s. Today the Sandhills are home to over 530,000 head of cattle, and we saw many large herds as we came south.

We pulled into the I-80 Lakeside Campground, a Passport America park, about 3:30, and were led to our grass site by the owner’s granddaughter on her go-kart, a first for us. And by 4pm we were all set up and watching TV. Nice.

Tomorrow afternoon we plan on checking out the Golden Spike Tower that overlooks the Bailey Yard, the largest railroad switching yard in the world.

Finishing up, when we leave here Wednesday morning I want to get more diesel since I wasn’t able fill up on Saturday, due to only being able to use each credit card once. So, using Google Maps, I’ve already scouted out a place to for us to hopefully fill up when we leave.

It looks to have plenty of room to get the rig in and out, and probably even hitch up. And even better, diesel is only $2.25 a gallon.

Glad I waited.

Thought for the Day: 

“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.” ~ Machiavelli

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