STE2 Hop 2: Chappell NE to Kearney NE

190 miles, almost exclusively on I-80. Cumulative tow miles: 467. Truck miles: 204. Cumulative truck miles: 473.

This route was Boring, with a capital B. Straight, flat, a few trees among the fields, but everything brown. Dull, uninteresting.

All of which didn’t help Jett’s headache. We were supposed to stay in Chappell for 2 nights – and paid for two – but two things combined to cut it short: (1) I learned that the Osage Nation Museum, which I had scheduled for a visit next Monday, was closed on Mondays and (2) the train traffic in Chappell, with loud horns blaring all night long, kept Jett from getting more than about 2 hours sleep. Which explained her headache.

Normally I would not want to travel when she is feeling so lousy, but when the reason for her illness is the campground… what’s a guy to do? The Osage Nation Museum problem pushed the decision over the edge. I decided that I needed to get to Bartlesville OK two days early. The only way to do that was to cut a day out of Chappell and a day out of Junction City KS (our next stop after Kearney). So I called, made the necessary changes to reservations and, once Jett was feeling well enough to travel, headed to Kearney.

The fact that we paid for 2 nights actually helped as we could leave a couple of hours later than normal. We departed Chappell at 1:30 and got into Kearney at 5:30 pm, losing an hour along the way due to the time zone change. But it all turned out to be worth it when Jett got a good night’s sleep last night.

Our train-filled night in Chappell was at the Creekside RV Park & Campground. If you follow the link you will see that it actually gets pretty good ratings. Not from us. Yes, the elderly hosts were very nice, and the site was large and level, but the train noise negatives overwhelmed any positives. It is a very basic park. I also made the mistake of choosing a 50-amp site with no water over a 30-amp site with water. Not having water meant that we had to operate off of our internal fresh water tank, which is fine, except that the pump noise is very irritating. That didn’t help Jett’s headache, either.

In addition to being adjacent to the train tracks, the campground was also near a large grain elevator or similar structure that had a lot of truck traffic. There were also some interesting long-term resident rigs in the park, including a trailer with a bolt-on deck. Unique.

On a positive note, I liked Chappell. It is an interesting small town that seems to be brimming with civic pride. I shopped at a very funky old-fashioned food market that had a nice meat section and decent prices. I got some really good photos of the beautiful sunset and we got to add our 47th state. But the negatives outweigh the positives. We won’t return.