The Highways Traveled

Purposes of this trip:
1. Visit the area around Oakley KS
2. Visit the Panhandle of Nebraska
3. Visit Fort Laramie and Casper
4. Re-visit Minute Man Missle National Park (it was closed in 2017)

KANSAS: Several people had mentioned to me over the years of places in western Kansas to visit. Monument Rocks and Little Jerusalem Badlands are both about 20 miles south of Oakley KS. And Oakley had a couple of museums worth a visit. To the east of Oakley is Victoria KS which has the St. Fidelas Basilica worth a look.
NEBRASKA: Although I had covered much of Nebraska over the years, I had never been into the Panhandle portion. Two national parks are there: Scottsbluff and Agate Fossil.
WYOMING: About an hour west of Scottsbluff NE is the Fort Laramie National Park. Although I have been to several forts, I wanted to see this one. And, two hours west of it is the town of Casper. Nothing there really worth seeing, though.
SOUTH DAKOTA: In 2017 I rushed to get to the Minute Man Missle National Park site before it closed at 5:00 pm Mountain time. At least, that is what time most national park visitor centers close. However, this site tends to have shorter hours and it closed at 4:00 pm the day in 2017 when I arrived at 4:20 pm. Went back to it in 2021 (and learned it now closes at 3:00 pm while other parks are open until 4pm or 5pm).


MISSED VISITING:
--Little Jerusalem Badlands -- two reasons: one, it costs $5.00 and I only had $20's and it is a self-paying kiosk vs. a person with change. Two, I thought I should just drive up to it to see it but learned it is an hour round trip for one hiking path and a half hour round trip for the other hiking path. and I had not planned to spend that much time there. Decided I could get further along on the trip that day since rain was forecasted the next day.
--Casper -- since there was really nothing here to see, and, it was an additional four hours of driving past Fort Laramie, and, it was late afternoon already, I decided to skip it

OBSERVATIONS: Some observations made while traveling in this area:

  1. The 300-mile wide swathe of north-south land just east of Denver is quite flat in many places. Some rolling hills and even some small mountains.
  2. Trees are rare in this area, thus, great for cattle grazing. And, great place for many miles of railroad track.
  3. From a previous visit to the area I recall how fun it was to see the numerous trains, with multiple engines, hauling 100 or so coal cars. The trains are spaced several miles between each other on the same track. Since double tracks, sometimes trains pass each other.

The Bests:


The Worsts:

The Totals:


Just to list this as of May 2021: