Two days on the Cowboy Trail

We moved from Chadron to Valentine where the Cowboy Trail is open. This is the western-most point which will eventually be extended to Chadron.  Surface is small packed gravel, crowned nicely, and with minimal ruts.  But it isn't paved by any stretch! The surface was smooth enough that we wanted to go fast, but boy, did it eat up our batteries.

Here's a couple photos of the long bridge just outside of Valentine. Between here and the next parking area off the trail, we saw the most people, typically walkers.

This trail is predominantly straight with few curves. It is surrounded by endless rolling prairie with a variety of agriculture from cattle to corn and soybean fields. Some stretches were just plain desolate. It turned out to be a bit too boring for us to feel like continuing. After 20 odd miles, we decided we'd find the next campsite.

Using the Cowboy Trail website as a resource, we decided to try out the city park in Atkinson as a place to camp for the night. It turned out to be very economical, clean, and sparsely populated - only three other campers besides us. This one had this sign on their bulletin board indicating that the park including a tornado shelter. It got our attention and it looked like a 1950's backyard bomb shelter! No storms this night, so we slept well.

Prior to turning in for the night, we decided on dinner and a brew from Brush Creek Brewing Company. The beer was good, and the thin crust pizza even better. Husband and wife owners (he's the brewmaster) are creating a 'Cheers'-like environment, so all was quite friendly. He gave us two tokens for free beers on a return trip and a couple of brewery stickers. 

A motorcycling trio were eating beside us, and with Sturgis so close, we struck up a conversation. All three were deaf/hard of hearing, and communicated with each other via sign language. But we did fine, as they wanted to see the van upfit, and I wanted to know more about their motorcycling adventures. Great fun!

These shots came from the corners in Atkinson. Quite imaginative....

The next morning we moved onto Norfolk to their city park. It was Sunday morning and we got the last pad site that included electric, but by noon other spots had opened up. Apparently, it's only crowded on weekends and special events. Kenny, the custodian for the camping area, wanted to visit, so we got a grocery store recommendation for steaks, and places to go see around town. This included the other city park with its pretty flowers, the VA housing area with its new statuary, and the local community college. Some web-surfing yielded a local brewing operation, Divot brewery at the golf course.

This van was was in the campground. Awesome restoration job!

 The riding from Norfolk west was much more interesting than from Valentine. Surface as paved for much of it, but there was more trail interest, and more things to see than corn and soybean fields. Rode Norfolk to Meadow Creek and back for a total of 40 miles.