11 Jul 2023 - Post-Hail, Fort Cody Trading Post/Museum, Golden Spike Tower

 

Doreen petting the "fluffy cow"!

This morning we assessed the damage from the previous night's hail storm.  The truck has about 30 hail dings on it of various sizes, but no broken glass.  The trailer does not have any damage that I can see.  A decal on front cap has a ding on it, but I cannot be sure that did not come from a big bug or rock.  The broken cover on our Maxxair fan appears to be from heat/age.  The vent fan has a big cover over the top of it and there were no penetrations, so the cracked cover did not come from a hail stone.

I spend a couple hours inspecting the truck and the trailer (from the roof), documenting everything and texting/conversing with State Farm who insures all of our vehicles.  It is a pretty simple process and we have a year to start it.  When we get back this fall, I will take the truck to our favorite body shop for an estimate and then State Farm will initiate a claim.  I have $250 deductible on the truck.  So, easy peezy, and they can work wonders with the paintless dent removal.  So we hope the storms stay away from now on!  While I was doing that Doreen knocked out a couple loads of laundry at the facility just 50 meters from here.

After lunch we headed out to visit the Fort Cody Trading Post and Old West Museum.  It is only a couple miles from our campground.  

Ironic that we would come to a Buffalo Bill Cody venue as he was born Feb 26, 1846 near Le Claire Iowa, which is in eastern Iowa close to the Mississippi River.  He hunted buffalo to feed the Kansas-Pacific railway and became known as 'Buffalo Bill'  in 1867.  He scouted for the Fifth Cavalry in 1868 and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1872.  Buffalo Bill made North Platte his home from 1878-1913 and built Scout's Rest Ranch in 1886.  He also started the world's first organized rodeo right here in North Platte on July 4, 1882.  The following year he started his 'Wild West' show here.  Buffalo Bill died Jan 10, 1917 and was buried atop Lookout Mountain near Denver CO.

We entered the Trading Post with the impression it was just going to be another....

But as we entered we were pleasantly surprised there was no admission!  Ah, good to go!  The Trading Post building is part souvenir shop and part museum.  There is a lot of candies, canned goods, and you name it.  

Bullwinkle checking our Doreen!

Pickled everything and anything you can think of!

They have western wear, hats, toy guns, shirts, bull horns, jewelry and other "toys" LOL ...

Whatcha gonna do with that, Nana?!

Atta boy!  The State beer of Texas!

Besides all the stuff for sale, the walls were lined with historical items.  Stuffed animals, firearms, artifacts from Buffalo Bill and others.  

Behind the store they have a western display with Conestoga wagons, a 'jail',  and other western items.  

In the back of the Trading Post they have a complete Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in miniature, and many of the pieces are animated!   

We departed Fort Cody and drove a few miles a few miles to the Golden Spike Tower.  This tower provides the best view overlooking Bailey Yard, the world's largest classification rail yard. 

The tower has an outside observation deck on the seventh floor and an inside observation deck on the eighth floor that allows you to watch as crews from the Union Pacific  Railroad "sort and connect over 10,000 cars a day on two classification hump yards, with nearly 120 bowl rows and 315 tracks."  So all of that is a bit hard to digest, but upon arrival at the Golden Spike and paying a modest admission fee, you watch an introductory video that makes it a lot clearer. 

 On the same bottom level is a gift shop and some historical displays that help us to understand more about the significance of North Platte and the Union Pacific Railway.  

We took the elevator up to the eighth floor and walked around the enclosed observation deck.  This gave us a great view of the Bailey Railyard, and it is massive!  They repair rail cars and locomotive engines here.  They also sort cars by type in the hump yard

We then proceeded down to the seventh floor which is an outside observation deck.  As we exited, we passed displays that highlight how North Platte was a location where troops passed through on the way to fight in World War II.  The North Platte Canteen was a volunteer effort to feed troops who came through North Platte, Nebraska on the train. "The canteen was a lunch counter at the Union Pacific Railroad station where volunteers provided food, cigarettes, and magazines to soldiers. The North Platte Canteen was one of approximately 120 community-based canteens in the United States during World War II, and was by far the largest, serving more than six million service members during a 10-minute stop as they were convoyed across the United States. The canteen operated from Christmas Day 1941 to April 1, 1946, well after World War II ended."

Back on the ground we walked around outside near the State's Flags, which included a plaque that listed the number of miles of Union Pacific rail lines in each state.  

On our way to the parking lot we passed a Union Pacific "Golden Spike" railcar with pictures in the windows to illustrate how it might have looked when it was full of passengers.

That is it for today.  Tomorrow we plan to visit the Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park.

10 Jul 2023 - Arrived at I-80 Lakeside Campground in North Platte NE and Mother Nature's Revenge

 

We departed South Sioux City this morning at 0834 hrs and headed west on US 20.  It was a beautiful, sunny Monday and a nice travel day.  We took our time and winded our way west and south across Nebraska on primarily two-lane highways, but there was very little traffic. 

A lot of our trip today looked like this!

The Nebraska sand hills came into view. 

The temperature continued to climb along the way.  We notice it hit 90F degrees but it may have gone higher.  Nothing like they are experiencing in Texas and other locations, but mighty warm compared to what we had seen so far.  

 At 1446 hrs, 5 hours and 12 minutes and 315 miles after we departed we rolled into North Platte and found the I-80 Lakeside Campground where we had reservations.  That is a pretty long day for us as we normally shoot for 225 miles or so on our travel days.  We got checked in quickly and made it to our site. 

Sites are pretty tight, luckily no one right next to us on our door side.

Notice the skies!

Set-up went well and afterwards we had a late lunch, but as the afternoon went on, the clouds continued to build and the weather alerts let us know about some impending storms. 

Dark skies to our northeast.

We took Liberty on a quick walk and the skies became darker.

Ominous clouds above our coach.

There was a line of severe storms to the north and east of us and it looked like we might miss the worst of it.  One of the weather apps my grandson had me get is called "Radar Scope", and it was showing a cell that looked like it might start our direction and it forecast two inch hail.  

The campground shelter was right behind us so we had that covered.  There were no strong winds forecast, but the main concern was the hail.  There was no realistic way to try and pack up and move in time, so we rolled in the slides and here came the hail!

After it passed there were a couple more cells to our west but they headed south and we got no further hail, just rain.  Went the rain subsided we mopped some of it off the truck and Mother Nature left her mark in quite a few places on the hood, the quarter panels and the roof.  . Here are a few:

 The only visible damage to the trailer that we could see from the ground or from inside is the vent cover in the bathroom, which is cracked.  Realizing there is a Maxxair cover over top that, the hail musty have penetrated that cover to damage the cover below. 

Tomorrow when the weather is clear I will go up there and have a better look.  In the mean time I initiated the process with our insurance company on both the truck and the RV.

Hey, it is what it is.  This, too, will pass.  We are lucky.  No one was injured.  No glass was broken.  The truck has a little cosmetic damage but is completely serviceable and our RV is yet to be determined, but likely very "camp-able".  Our friends Mike and Rachel in Arkansas were not so lucky.  They recently were on the receiving end of a terrible hail storm and have buildings with severe damage and their Alliance Paradigm RV very similar to ours may likely be totaled.  Their damage makes our minor dents and tweaks pretty insignificant.

At the end of the day, a double rainbow appeared, maybe a sign that all will be well and there are better days ahead.  We all need to be thankful for everything we have and sometimes we need to be reminded.

9 Jul 2023 - Lunch with Janet Fett

 

Today we had lunch with a cousin of mine, actually a second cousin, that I had never met.  Janet Fett lives in South Sioux City and is an optometrist.  We had become acquainted on Facebook and we looked forward to the day we could actually meet in person.  That day was today!  We made arrangements to have lunch at a local Mexican restaurant and we met there at noon today.  

The "Fett" side of my family is on my father's side.  Lefty's mother (my grandmother) was Freda Fett.  

A pencil sketch of my grandmother Freda Fett.

My grandmother Freda and her two boys, my uncle Bernard and my dad Lowell "Lefty".  They were home on leave from the United States Marine Corps in 1942 before shipping off to the South Pacific to fight the Japanese during World War II.  

 

Freda's brother was Wilhalm Fett. His son was Chester Fett and Chester's daughter was Janet Fett. I hope I got that right! Janet?!

Anyway we had a great conversation about our families.  It is obvious I could spend days exchanging information with Janet and I intend to do so but likely after our trip and via the Internet.  I want to get her access to the family tree I have been working on so she can update her portion.

After lunch she came back to our RV to look at my grandmother Freda Fett's bible that my sister Karen gave to me a couple weeks ago, and our conversations continued.  Janet suspects it was Freda's confirmation bible, based on her date of birth (5 May 1892) and the date on the bible (1906)  The bible is all in German.  

Anyway, we had a great meal and great conversation.  It is so nice to meet your kin and learn more about your family.  None of us are getting any younger and with every passing relative more information about the history of the family is potentially lost forever.  I have so much to learn from Janet that I might pass on to my kids.

Tomorrow we will depart the Sioux City area and head towards North Platte NE where we will camp for four nights before heading to Denver and points west and south.