I left Buffalo, WY at about 9:00 after a pancake breakfast at the campground. If you look at a map you will see that if you want to head southwest out of Buffalo you basically need to head south on I-25. Well, that is not entirely true and believe me I did look at the hashed lines on the map representing unpaved roads closely. If I was at the beginning of my trip instead of approaching the end my route very likely would have been different. As it was, I wanted to be well into Nebraska by the time I set my tent up that evening and unpaved roads are a big unknown. This is exactly why I love taking them most of the time but today I was in the mood to haul.

And haul I did. Overall, I put about 125 miles on I-25 before getting off on Hwy 20 outside of Douglas. That bit of interstate was actually not that bad. The traffic was almost nonexistent and considering the condition of the road it was much like traveling a divided two lane backroad most other places.

Needing gas, I stopped at a truck stop and diner along the way and the place, for whatever reason was hoppin'. It was packed and the only thing I could figure was that being a Sunday, this restaurant was the only place to get something to eat. I had a mediocre reuben and a tossed salad and service was about what you would expect from a crowded truck stop.

I got off of 20 and headed south on Hwy 2 at Crawford. In Alliance 2 turns east and I remained on this road all the way to the Nebraska National Forest. In the 475 miles between Buffalo, WY and the Nebraska National Forest the road curved about three times. Once I reached the forest I was shocked to find a fully decked out camping facility. In fact it was probably the most modern camp ground I have ever seen. The check in station had an electronic device with numeric keypad, a place to swipe your credit card, and a bill reader in case you were paying with cash. I can't imagine the fun this must be for your average camper. It would have been entertaining to watch people attempt to check in. The instructions were not for the faint of heart and the machine required seperate payments for the day pass and the camping pass. A park person was standing there when I rode up so I didn't get to try my luck with the device personally. Of course with the number of casinos out west maybe most people are highly skilled at putting money into a machine.

Since the road was straight and pretty boring I played some more with the camera while riding. This is how all of the pictures on this page were taken. Today was actually the day I found out about using the neck strap and how much better that worked than freeholding the camera. For those of you with GS's with a speedometer and odometer that drive you crazy with their inaccuracy, click on the picture to the right. You can see the speedometer is reading 70 mph and the GPS is reading 69.1. Before my speedo hub change these figures would have been at least 5 mph different. Now it is about a 1 mph difference at this speed. The final odometer reading for the trip was 6,254 miles on the bike and 6,208 miles on the GPS. This is a difference of less than 1%. Too bad BMW doesn't include the proper hub when you buy the bike. I think if I were buying a new bike I would make them change this out before I picked up my motorcycle for the first time.

Nebraska must be the train capital of the United States. A train track runs along hwy 2 for most of the distance I traveled and I don't think I went more than 5 minutes without seeing a train on that track. They were all heading west but what they were carrying is a mystery to me. Whatever it was there must have been a lot of it.

Once I got to the forest and set up the tent I met two couples who were traveling west. The older couple, riding a Goldwing with trailer, were in their fifth week on the road and were heading home to Las Vegas. The younger couple, on a Harley, were in their second week and were heading home to Seattle. I never quite figured out how the couples were related but my guess is the older couple were parents to either the man or woman of the second couple. Regardless, they were entertaining to talk to so I socialized a bit and then headed back to my tent for the night.

Tomorrow "Yes Dorothy, we are in Kansas.". Picture on the right? Think left hip.