Magnus Goes North With Summer, Day 18

Friday June 13 

New life bird—Willow Flycatcher. I went over to the marshy spot to look at the Yellowthroat and heard a wheet! Whit-tehh.  Merlin Id’ed it and I saw the shape, wingbars, head, and of course the flycatching behavior.

After that adventure, I pronounced it a lovely morning. Partly overcast; gentle breeze out of the southwest.

 

Some kind of weird sculptures by the interstate
 

We had a very long drive to Mormon Island State Recreation Area in Nebraska. I’d originally planned it as about 4:10, which is a longish drive for us these days, but I’d noticed that there was an “all interstate” route that brought it up to five hours.  When I asked Ed about it, he said that he preferred a shorter drive, even on secondary highways, to a five-hour drive. So allrighty.

But when he used his new Trucker App to plot the route himself, he decided to take the interstate route. Which kind of makes sense to me, because our experience in driving the secondary highways these last few days is that they are excessively slow, partly because of all the stops in small towns; partly because he lets the hills slow us way, way down; and partly because the rough road surfaces frequently limit our speed even more.

So that’s what we did. I didn’t calculate the actual drive time but I fell asleep for the last hour of it. Oops.

 

The Mormon Island place was rather odd. It was large, very close to the Interstate, and crowded. But pretty—lots of little lakes with campground loops in and around them and grassy paths mowed so you can walk here and there. The lake we were camped near was set up for fishing, but I noticed that the lake nearer the entrance had a “beach” and a roped-off swimming area. Very nice. I didn’t see anyone swimming but I didn’t see that until later in the day, so I might have just missed them.

Our site was pretty and had a nice lake view. But we didn’t spend much time sitting outside. Still, I’d camp here again for the convenience of it if nothing else.

 

 

Lots fishies in the lake

 

Molly and I took a long walk past the nearest lake and ended up on a trail that paralleled the Interstate and seemed to go eastward for a long way. We eventually had to give up and turn back, so we may have missed still another lake back there. (We had a map but it didn’t show the trails, just the campsites)

Later we decided to walk around the nearest lake. We had to backtrack and circle around out of our path because a fishing person had taken up the entire trail area with their gear, but that only took a few minutes. Going around the entire lake took us 45 minutes.  The sun was still up at ten before nine, but it set shortly thereafter.  Gee, these northern folks sure have a lot of daylight!

 

REVIEW Mormon Island State Recreation Area 69/2=$35  site 65 cedar campground

Sort of like an interstate rest area but very pretty

Okay, the first thing I have to say is that the place is right off I-80 and the noise is constant. Over the lake and through the trees, you can see the big trucks roll by.  And hear them.

But it’s a beautiful place!  A huge campground with about three loops and several little lakes where you can fish or paddle around in your kayak.  Or sit and watch birds. And pick off ticks, but that goes with the territory.  It’s very well-groomed in a wild and natural sort of way, like a city park.

Our back-in site 63 had 50-amp electric. No water but there are plenty of water fill stations around.  I’d read that there were enough spigots that you could Y-tap one here, but that’s definitely NOT true for the Cedar camping area that we were in. 

The roads are well marked and easy to get around. The lady at the check-in station was extremely nice; we only had to pay a park entrance fee for the toad, not the motorhome.  The sites are long—ours was long enough for the 35’ motorhome and toad—and there is a parking area nearby.  On the negative side, the sites are pretty close together, much closer than the usual state park spacing but nowhere near as close as an RV park’s.

We had no shade (so Starlink worked well) but there are plenty of big trees around. And I could walk 20 feet from my picnic table to fish in the lake if I wished.  There is also a network of  trails; the map indicated about 1-2 or 2 miles of them but it might have been more.

Nice little swimming beach for the kiddies.