Wednesday, May 27, 2015 – Chadron State Park, Chadron, NE

Wednesday, May 27, 2015 – Chadron State Park, Chadron, NE

We left Lake McConaughy at 9:41 MT to drive about 161 miles.  We arrived at Chadron State Park at 1:45 p.m. MT.  This was a nice state park and we enjoyed our stay here.  We watched the storm clouds heading our way as we drove towards Chadron.  They have some trails here in the park but since it looked like the sky could open at any time we decided we would drive up the short mountain in the park to the overlook rather than try to walk it.  On the way we met a park worker who told us the road can get pretty slick when it rains so to be careful.  He told us it was still a little walk from the parking area out to the overlook.  We finished the drive but decided to heed his advice and head down before the rain hit.  Well, the boys will tell you that they tried to get us to stay but we chickened.  It never rained!

I will mention that we took the spot they gave us in the campground, although they told us we could look around and change if we wanted and then we could call them with a new campsite #.  After we drove through the campground we wished we had done this before setting up.  We had no idea the campground had various levels and how just that little bit of difference to an upper level would have provided a much better phone and internet signal.  Oh well, we’ll know if we stop here again.  I could definitely come back to this part of the country for another visit.  We’ve loved it so far.  I also might mention that the roads in Nebraska have been very, very good in comparison to some states we have visited and that has been wonderful!

 

These are pictures of the skies as we drove up to the overlook.

 

 

The skies cleared a bit so we decided we would try to hike up to the overlook and we took out up the hill.  Unfortunately the trail was a bit hard to follow and we think we quit about half way. 

 

 

 

 

We decided to drive back to the top and hike the trail from the top toward the bottom.  It was much better from that direction but because it was getting late, we didn’t want to hike down and back up to the truck that night.  This part of the hike was great.   

 

From the overlook!

 

 

 

Our shadows!

 

 

We came back to Bentley and I made dinner – spaghetti with meat sauce and garlic bread.  The boys have quite an appetite.  Reminds me of the early years after Dean and I were married feeding our 6 kids.  So glad I do not have to buy groceries for all of them today. 

After dinner, we drove into Chadron to get gas, hit Wal-Mart in search of a new hair dryer as mine decided to play out, and in search of ice cream.   We asked a teller at Wal-Mart for a suggestion on the ice cream and he told us about a place called Donald’s – no not McDonald’s.  Believe me this place had great ice cream.  It was a local burger joint.  I had raspberry with chocolate chunk ice cream.  Talk about wonderful!  I would go back through Chadron again just for the ice cream.  Since I’m writing this several weeks after the trip I cannot remember what everyone else had but we all raved about how good it was.

We settled in for the night and thinking of that short drive tomorrow to Custer, the last leg of our trip.