Gettysburg

Day 3 September 15, 2024 Casper Wyoming to Chadron Nebraska 206 miles

We started the day with a trip to Walmart to get a couple of camp chairs for the tour. They were suggested in an email received yesterday. Glad they had a couple of cheap chairs. Then we went to Harbor Freight to get a couple of chocks. They are required for the tour. Evidently we will be in hills part of the time.

After two long days we decided to make it a shorter day. We were definitely on backroads to start the day. We only saw two vehicles until we turned onto a different highway. The terrain was pretty flat with large ranches. The day is sunny with lots of blue sky.

Our first wildlife sighting was a pair of domestic goats out in the barrow pit. Pretty sure they don’t belong there. Maybe they were trying to go wild.

We did see a few pumping oil wells throughout the day. Not too many however. They were not close together either.

Only a couple of metal silhouettes on today’s drive. The landscape is more varied than yesterday. We had flat areas, rolling hills and a few deep valleys. All of it is dry with very few trees.

We saw two or three antelope in different places. Never saw any large herds. They are usually close to the road. We only saw one roadkill one so that is good.

We stopped for a break and lunch at a rest stop. They had lots of shade trees but only a few tables. In the shade with a gentle breeze it wasn’t too bad. The temperature is definitely warmer today. We already have two of the windows open.

After lunch we saw a group of 6-8 wild turkeys right beside the road. They didn’t seem too scared when we drove by.

One area had quite a few birds of prey sitting on the power poles or fence posts. Food must be plentiful. Thankfully there were no buzzards checking us out.

The wind was really strong for most of the afternoon. Even with an audio book on with headphones we could hardly hear the story.

We blew into the hotel about 3 pm. We were hot and tired so we spent some time cooling off before going for frozen dinners at the grocery store.

The car ran fine today. It was pretty warm this afternoon and we had no overheating issues. A special thanks to Elvin Hightower for helping Rob tighten up the steering last week. It has made it easier to keep the car on the road.