One other thing I found about our location this morning. In addition to the livestock market being right behind where we were camped, we found out that the railroad was just on the other side of the livestock market. And it’s a busy railroad. Unlike Long Pine where the only track was converted to a bike path, this railroad has multiple tracks still in existence, with multiple trains per hour rumbling through. Starting at about 5am, it seemed like a train came through every ten minutes, complete with long drawn-out blasts of its horn.
Other than that, we slept pretty well.
One idea we had for today’s adventure was Toadstool Geological Park and Campground, located just under 20 miles from this town. Problem is, 15 of those miles are on a dusty washboard dirt road. When talking about it yesterday, we decided to move on as we had enough pounding for a while. This morning, we reconsidered. We had a good night’s sleep, we were rested, and perhaps we could do a little more dirt. So after refreshing the water supply at the campground, we took off towards the park.
The road was dusty, it was bumpy, and it was incredibly long, but we eventually made it. Probably the main feature of this park is that it sits right where the grasslands meet the badlands. To the east, it seems to be nothing but flat and grass, and to the west, formations of clay and limestone. This park has a little bit of both mixed in with each other.
If you are a geology freak, this is the place for you. Lots of layers in the rock, fault lines, even fossils and ancient animal prints in the rock to keep you busy for a very long time. We just enjoyed the scenery and the rather abrupt change in landscape.
We hiked a few miles amongst the sandstone formations enjoying the cooler weather. We nearly had the place to ourselves. When we got back from the hike there were a couple others that braved the road to get here.
We enjoyed lunch overlooking this area in the parking lot, windows open to the cool breezes coming through. Temperatures were cooler than yesterday and the wind was less severe, making for a much more pleasant experience.
It took close to an hour to return to Crawford, then we continued on, eventually leaving Nebraska and entering Wyoming. There are quite a few wildfires here and we saw one of the smaller ones in the distance as we approached Interstate 25. Hopefully the areas we eventually want to visit will be clear.
We put a few more miles behind us and arrived in Glenrock, Wyoming, in time to make dinner. Glenrock has a city park with a few free campsites so we claimed one and parked for the evening. Made burgers and veggies on the portable grill for dinner.
After dinner we took a bike ride into town in a quest for ice cream. The local grocery store had Klondike bars for over six bucks. We found them at Dollar General for $4.50. Had to get our ice cream fix for the night.
Miles Traveled Today: 185
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