Friday, September 10, 2010

Off The Grid (Bessey Rec Area Nebraska)

We left the Buryanek Rec Area on Tuesday and we decided to go to a US Forest campground in Halsey Nebraska. It is a first come first serve campground so reservations can not be made. One problem with a lot of the US Forest campgrounds is that they do not handle today’s bigger rigs. The sites are small, and electricity is hit and miss. Now we new all this before heading out and if we could not fit we would just find a place to boondock for the night and then we would just move on the next day.

The drive/ride to Halsey was just perfect. The weather was around 75 degrees and sunny. We traveled through the Sand Hill area of Nebraska and all of the rolling hills was quite a site. There are no crops in this part of Nebraska, just grass for cattle. Now the homestead act originally  allowed for 160 acres and many settlers claimed some of this land but it was not any good for farming so a lot of the land went unclaimed. The government then decided to allow 640 acres for this area to get settlers to move into the area. Many tried, but were unsuccessful in farming. Here is a quote from one area settler “ It was a slow starvation on 160 acres but one could starve just fine on 640.

Now driving through this area I am glad we did not break down. It would take quite awhile to get a tow vehicle to us.

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We made it to the Bessey campground and we parked the fifth wheel in the parking lot and took the motorcycle around the campground to look for a site. This is one advantage we have by not towing the motorcycle. We can easily check out a campground before we pull the rig through an area. The campsites here are very small and only a few would be long enough for us to fit and most of those were down roads that had too low of hanging tree limbs for our rig to fit under.

We finally found a site were we thought we could fit and it was close to the entrance. It did have electricity so that was a plus. It was a little tricky getting it backed in and avoiding some overhead limbs. We managed to get in and all set up. Then I remembered one very critical thing. I forgot to fill our fresh water holding tank. Now there was no way I was going to pull this thing out and get water and then back it back in here again. We still have a little water in the tank. Enough to use the bathroom and that is all. We will be here for four days so we will have to be very careful with water usage. Live and learn!

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This campground is mainly used by off road enthusiasts. I really want to go out on one of the trails but I do not think the goldwing is up to the task. This is also the home of the oldest  US Forest Dept nursery. Here they plant all kinds of trees to be transplanted throughout the United States.

Our cell phone and internet has not worked until today and we definatly feel we are off the grid. We are surrounded by pine trees and have plenty of fire wood so we have really liked the seclusion. We will leave here Saturday morning and will be headed for Monument Colorado arriving sometime Sunday after noon.

1 comment:

piper1942 said...

Dave & Max I found you on the map. So you can disregard the phone call. It sounds like you are going to be traveling for the next 2 days. Hope to read more and see more pictures. Have a safe trip. Max & Sue