My riding buddy lives in Omaha and I live in the Kansas City metro. Last year we rode to Oshkosh and as funds are tighter this year, we decided to split ground and meet at the Indian Caves state park in Nebraska, roughly two hours for each of us. We met through a model airplane board and have been meeting annually at that boards fly in get together. Last year we made the trip on our bikes to Oshkosh for a week of airshows and camping. Budget is a little tighter this year so a couple overnights of camping along with the flyin is all we can manage. But it wasn't off to a good start this year when after a month of planning he got called in to work the weekend. So instead of prepping for the weekend Thursday night, I took my family out to eat. Then Friday mid morning his supervisor asked when he was going to leave for the trip. See, the super had him charted out but the boss didn't know. Well, I got off early, ran home and threw the essentials, and a couple of Electric RC airplanes, into my bike trailer and headed off to Nebraska.
Everything was going GREAT. Till Mr Garmin decided that it would be decidedly quicker to go cross country. Now, I am no stranger to gravel roads. I don't really have a Dual Purpose motorcycle, just a Vtwin cruiser, but we've been down plenty of gravel roads. Heck, part of the climb to Pikes Peak was still gravel when I went up it. But then Mr Garmin said, 'go this way 4 miles'. That way was clearly marked "Un Maintained roadway. Travel at your own risk." It was dirt, with grass in it and the only buildings I went by were dilapidated old houses and I think a church. See my voice activated Garmin LOVES to tell me where the nearest church is. I haven't found that function in the setting menu. I just know when it starts telling me where the nearest church is it's time to pull the battery and let it totally reboot, so going by an abandoned one makes total sense. No worries though, there wasn't any rain and I made it to the highway and pavement soon enough. My formerly clean bike looks like it has been in the Sahara but, no worries.
I got to the park first and road down to look at the cave site shown above. Really more of an outcropping that various groups have used through history as an overnight, picknicking spot. It's finally fenced off a bit to keep people from carving graffiti into the clif-face. After all, your graffiti might cover over someone elses, fer instance, the two flanking animal pictographs that some ancient man carved into the cliff face. Or Rebecca something that was carved in a hundred years ago, or MFM that was scratched in with a rock maybe last year or last week. Folks still climb the fence. There are a couple places where someone has tactfully matched and stucco'd concrete so I assume someone had a potty mouth ta boot. Still, one mans graffiti is another mans artifact even though everyone was doing the same thing, saying they were there.
Like this guyAnd this one
which is underneath some of that concrete.
Here's a panorama of a funnel that has boared through the cave ceiling before the cliff collapsed out. It's pretty smooth sides are from folks constantly trying to climb up it.
Now I have video, but there is nothing really worth putting together. Most was shot with a keychain cam which does really pretty well, except you have to point it, and that's the problem. It's mostly while I was traveling, shooting up my nostril from the tank of my bike. And then some from the same location while I'm reading the map of the site and waiting for my buddy who finally showed 3 hours later. Wasn't this HIS idea? Oh well. My scouting had located several sites and my top pic was still available. It's an off shoot from a main open area that you have to trek 50 yards back into a glenn to get to. OR use the shortcut path. We were basically car camping without the car, and the supplies. I had two Mountain House meals and one Breakfast with enough water for both. I didn't have anything flavorfull to mix into the water. I figured I would just pick something up at the nearest quick trip . That Quick Trip proved to be about 30 minutes away and we made the trip at 8:45 after setting up camp in the glen to save our spot. It was a storm threatening night so even though it was nice, not a lot of people were showing up. We got back from out little bike outing at 10:30 and idled down to camp, fixed some hot dogs and chips and shot the breeze in front of the caveman TV.
Our setup.
I forgot to bring a drop cloth for my pack to sit on, though I used the cover it comes with. He forgot one too, so he just used that big ole piece of astroturf. Normally he RV camps.
Saturday morning after a nice but oh so very dark night of sleep, I made breakfast by boiling the water. I had brought my cook kit from home. My IMUSA 12 cm pot and Fancee Feast can stove AND the Zelph Mini Feast cook kit I won from that Christmas raffle.
After breakfast we cleaned up, packed it all up and headed out by 10. He didn't have time to put planes in his trailer and the idea of putting combat streamer on behind one of mine and flying it alone, well, that just wasn't fun. But I was perfectly happy with the trip we had and made the slightly over 2 hour trip home smiling.
Picture of our bikes up in the parking lot while we're loading up.
It was dark. The clouds were hiding the moon and there was little other light. Too bad about the clouds as I think we'd have had a really nice view of stars as far out as it is. When I got up at 4 to take care of bidness I knew it was really dark, so dark that the glow clips on my leadouts were easily seen. Heck, they barely had any sunlight before it got dark. I couldn't see where I was going, instead I just kinda walked where i thought I was going to be alright. Turning around and seeing those clips confirmed I was where I thought I was, though they were about the only thing visible at the time. I couldn't see anything up the glen and there was a couple of camp lights a couple hundred yards away the other way.
I hope we can do it again soon, maybe have our heads together and actually get some combat in. Or do some hiking on their trails.
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