High Plains Homestead, Nebraska

May 31, 2022

High Plains Homestead is located in the Nebraska panhandle and borders the Oglala National Grassland. The proprietors were a nice couple who purchased the property in 2018. The previous owner had a hobby of collecting ghost town buildings and furnishings, which he brought to the property. It appeared that at one time, the property was more of a "resort" with a "ghost town", restaurant, pool, horses, gift shop, and cabins. The "town", gift shop, and cabins are still in operation, but not the other amenities. Times are a bit hard for the couple, as we only saw one or two other parties here during the Memorial Day weekend.

Our campsite had awesome views of Oglala National Grassland

Campground Notes: We had a very pleasant and private dry camping site overlooking the National Grasslands. The drive in on the long gravel road stirred up a lot of dust that managed to find its way into the camper. Upon leaving after the rains, our camper was caked in mud in spots. The views and quiet more than made up for that bit of inconvenience.

Friday's drive to the campground was very pleasant, and the scenery of northern Nebraska continued to surprise us with how pretty it was.

Beginning to get a hint of the Black Hills. (We'll see more of these later.)

The gravel road to the campground was long, dusty and kind of rough in some spots.

It was nice to be able to put the deck out again after several days of keeping it stowed.

Finally, we were able to relax and stay in one place for more than a day.

It was hard to believe this was our yard for the next few days!

There were lots of interesting old buildings/structures and accoutrements from the pioneer days on the property.

The remains of a very old camper

The "ghost town" with original buildings that were transplanted onto the property

The pool was a bit past its prime.

Cooking with a view

Nice clear evening - would have been good for starwatching (if we had stayed up that late)

On Saturday, we took the bikes out for a ride around the dirt roads in the area.  It was quite scenic.

Many areas of the Sandhills were reminiscent of a golf course with giant sand traps.

The Sandhills area of Nebraska is definitely cow country.

The cows took a particular interest in us as we rode by. Don't know if it shows in the photos very well, but almost every cow stopped what it was doing to watch us. It felt a bit like a Far Side cartoon.

As we continued, the cows shifted position to watch us. Government spies perhaps?

Cute baby cows that had a tendency to bolt right in front of us

As we approached these cows in the road, the herd began running in front of us. We felt like regular cowboys!

Erosion has created a very unique landscape here.

Sunday was a nice day for a hike so we drove over to the nearby Toadstool Geological Park. It looked like a mini version of the Badlands in South Dakota. It was a fairly short hike, but fun nonetheless.

The path mostly followed a wash so was easy hiking most of the time.  At the end, the trail went up and over some of the features.

These rocks looked like they were 3D printed with too low of resolution!

Back at the camper, we hung out for the rest of the afternoon just enjoying the surroundings.

That's the camper in the upper left corner.

Watching a storm in the distance

Sunday night into Monday had some major storms come through, so that provided a good test for our back deck awning (which did fine) as well as letting us know where major air leaks are in the camper (more for the fix it list).  Monday rained the whole day and was in the 50s (dropping to the mid 40s by late afternoon), so it was a good day to make bread, read, and hang out.  For some reason, it seems that whenever we go somewhere for Memorial Day, it is cold and rainy. This year was no exception!

In addition to the rain on Monday, it was relentlessly windy Monday and through Sunday when we left.

Question of the day:

Why could we not find frozen pizza without pepperoni while we lived in Cincinnati? Even Nebraska has pepperoni-free sausage frozen pizza!

Why did we have to wait for Nebraska for this?????

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