Day 22 September 19, 2025 Thedford Nebraska to Douglas Wyoming 294 miles
The day started out very cloudy with lots of thunder and lightning. It must have rained at least some during the night because the hood of the car was very wet. The car does not like wet. Therefore it took about 15 minutes and lots of attempts to get it started.
We drove a short distance when it felt like we had a flat tire. We stopped, Rob got out and checked the tires. All were just fine. It was the road. It had a strange patch that just affected the narrow tires differently.
We continue to drive through the sand hills. The area is 23,000 square miles. A giant aquifer is under the hills. We see lots of small wind mills used to pump water. The wind mills don’t need to be very tall because the wind is so strong at ground level. Farmland has ended but some cattle roam the hills.
A flock of 20 or so wild turkeys were beside the road. They didn’t seem too concerned about the car.
Further down the road were two vultures sitting on a log. They had their wings out sunning themselves. They were the same but smaller and not so ugly ones we saw before.
A small lake was further down the road. At least three what we think we blue heron were standing in the water. One was on a dead tree limb much higher up. Must have wanted a better view.
We did have to wait a few minutes at one construction site. They were resurfacing another section of road. Amazing how many vehicles were backed up when we got to the other side. The distance was about two miles but still had a pilot car.
The road paralleled the railroad tracks most of the day. At least a dozen trains pulling coal cars went by. For a couple of miles other cars were just parked on the tracks. Seemed a strange place to park them. Wyoming produces about 40% of the nations coal so that is most likely where this is coming from. Don’’t know where it is going. Each train has at least 100 cars. One of the trains honked his horn at us.
We had a short break of flat land so the farmland was back. This time one of the main crops was sunflowers. They were a shorter variety with smaller heads but lots of them.
As we entered Wyoming some of the rock formations were interesting. The altitude was higher too. Not as much traffic.
We got to the hotel earlier than expected. We gained an hour by crossing into the mountain time zone. Also helped that the roads were mostly straight, no cities and few highway changes.
Spoffords Travel 