07.21.2023 -douglas

with only 65 mi. to ride to douglas, i took the luxury of a slow morning.  shower, pack, breakfast and more talk with alan.  i've enjoyed meeting him.  i finally get on the road at 8:30, wove my way through town at first on the biketrail until it proved unrideable, then on the service road till it ended, then down good old us 20.

20 mi. to first stop of glenrock.  as i come in to town, there is a small park at 'the rock in the glen.'  

us 20 gets interupted here for some reason.  i make the decision not to get on the interstate and not to try the dirt & gravel road that follows the river.  instead, i go the long route up 15 mi at an angle and back 15 mi. on the companion angle.  all back into the middle of nowhere.  google says it's primarily flat.  wrong again, google.

the first leg has several hills and a lot of flies.  what's with the flies?  even while riding, i'm constantly swatting them away but some get bites in. only when zipping downhill do they loose interest.  when i finally make it onto the return leg, the flies disappear.  i don't know, maybe i crossed over some magical ridge line.   there's less uphill on the return leg.  and there are more fracking wells.  fracking wells, once drilled and left to produce aren't much of an eyesore.  they have a fairly low profile.

it's not level land,  but the road goes on forever....

and there's alot of empty grazing range land.  i'm told later that this is fall/winter grazing land, the cattle have been moved to higher ranges for summer.

since i have the time, i stop at the state's historic sites of ft. fetterman and the one mile hog ranch on  the north platte rver. neither is there anymore, only one building from the fort still survives.

the fort was built as part of the indian wars and custer's fatal last campaign started from there.  

the fort was so desolate that it was considered a 'hardship posting'.  i noticed there were three houses for married officers and i'm thinking if this was a hardship post for soldiers, what must have it been like for the few women stationed there with their husbands?

douglas is a depressing town.  it's deceiving at first if one comes from the interstate.  a nice array of the usual suspects, mcdonalds, taco john, wendys, subway, a hotel or two.  then heading downtown, crossing the north platte, there's riverside park.  a pretty park with a cover of trees, lush green grass and split rail fences that provides free overnight for rv's and tenters.  toilets w/ showers included.  very nice.

then you curve into the downtown.  three, four blocks of ...... nothing.  well, not quite.  a couple of bars, railroad museum and visitor center and empty buildings.  i stopped into the visitor center and when i asked about food, they directed me to the interstate at first.  says alot.  

i went to a bar/restaurant, which was empty at 4:30 on a friday, and talked a little with the owner.  i asked what makes the town tick, because there's nothing downtown.  she replied 'oil, gas, and cattle'.  but on the weekends everyone heads to water or the mountains to get away from the dry and the heat.  and apparently even the cattle get moved to summer grazing and the surrounding grasslands are allowed to recover for the winter, when the cattle come back. 

except the insects, they stick around.  on top of the usual mosquitos and gnats, the flies can be bad.  they're still in a drought here, but it's been an unusually wet spring/early summer.