Day 90 - Saturday - Discovering a gem of a State Park
Vicky has plotted out our route to Santa
Fe, to include a visit to Fort
Laramie where the Indian Treaty
that was violated by the whites was signed.
To get there requires a stop en route, and she chose Fort
Robinson State Park,
just outside of Crawford, Nebraska.
It got good reviews on the website we use, but it was really
just a place to stop over - until we got there!
It's an 80 mile drive due south from Wind
Cave, along SD71 which turns into
NE71. This is really "The Road Less
Traveled" and we see almost no other traffic as we leave the Black
Hills and venture across the prairies. In Crawford we turn west and soon arrive at Fort
Robinson. We immediately see that this was more than
just a stopover.
The Google lady, not for the first time, sends us the wrong
way. We turn down the road she suggests,
which does indeed go into the park.
After passing some horse barns we find a campground, fairly full of RVs
but with empty spaces, some with no reservation notice on them. What we do NOT see was a camp host or any
place to pay a camping fee, So we chat
with a group of people enjoying drinks in the sun, and discover that we need to
go to the office, which is on the next road after the one Google sent us down.
Vicky had been worried that most of the sites in this park
were booked, and only 4 shown as available.
She'd even found another RV park 20 miles to the east where we could
make a reservation, but I vetoed it when we found it was 20 miles down a gravel
road. So we made a (for us) early start
and arrive a little after noon. By the time we do find the office it's after 1pm.
This is when we find out there are plenty of sites available. Half of
their sites are walk up only and they don't sell them until after 2pm.
Once person is ahead of us, so Vicky stands in line while I go to the
information booth to find out what else there is to do here.
You could probably spend a week here. There's a horse drawn carriage ride with a
historical commentary; jeep tours; trail rides; two museums; historical
buildings to visit; a swimming pool; a restaurant and even a professional
theater featuring 5 musicals in repertory for the summer! Why all the activities? Read on!
2pm comes and
we're given a choice of full hookup or not.
We go for the full hookup and choose one of the 5 sites offered to
us. We pay the fee - a reasonable $26
per night - and then find we also have to pay for a Nebraska State Parks
license - $8 each per night for the car and RV unless we want to get an annual
pass. Not a cheap place to stay, but as
we'll find out, well worth the money.
While we were waiting to check in I'd gone online to see
what tickets were available for the Post Playhouse. It said they were full, but we decide to go
to the box office to see it that's true.
Tomorrow's performance of "Footloose" is indeed full, but
we're able to get 2 tickets for tonight's performance of "42nd
Street" thanks to a cancellation. So after dinner we head to the theater - our
3rd of this trip.
We're not disappointed.
We know this show - a story of a chorus girl who gets the chance to take
over for the leading lady and becomes a star overnight - and despite the small
stage and small cast (all professionals), the dancing (high energy and superbly
executed), singing (each principal actor's tone just what the character should
be) and acting (uniformly strong) are of the same high quality we enjoyed in
Pagosa Springs and Medora. There
certainly is a lot of talent in regional theaters around this country!
There had been a major rainstorm before dinner, during which
we drove into town to get some eggs, but the weather holds up for the evening
and we get back home to the waiting cats with no problem. Tomorrow we'll spend the day exploring the
park
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