Wilderness?!...in Nebraska!?

I didn't know that Nebraska had a National Forest, much less a wilderness, but the wilderness at Soldier Creek north of Ft. Robinson certainly qualifies!  We arrived later than we ordinarily would want to arrive at a campground but the night was spectacular.  The stars were so bright, there was no mistaking the Milky Way.  Unfortunately we didn't get to enjoy it very long, since we needed to settle the horses...in a huge paddock. There were 14-15 paddocks, only one other horse, and the pen we picked for the girls was as big as many arenas!

The next morning we met a fellow horseman, Moe--who had been to the area before--and his trusty steed, Blue. (Short for Blue Moon, because he said, "Only once in a blue moon do you find a horse this good!")  He insisted on showing us around, which was a good thing.  The trail he took us to overlook the campground was as

rugged as any I have ridden in Costa Rica.  Since this was JoyFull's first ride in a long time and only her second trail ride in her life, we tried to take it easy. After the climb to the overlook, we took a steep downhill to the creek and did a half dozen creek crossings.  At one particularly muddy crossing JoyFull decided to jump.  I thought she was going straight over, but in mid air, she changed her trajectory slightly to the right.  Unfortunately, I kept traveling straight and upon landing we no longer filled the same saddle!  Fortunately I landed on my flab on the rocky creek bank and though it was painful in my tail bone region for a few days, nothing was broken and even very little bruising.

After the ride, later that afternoon, Moe drove us around Ft. Robinson and the surrounding area in his pickup.  We got a royal tour that we could not have done on our own.  Thanks, Moe!

We did take the next day "off" from riding...gave

Dave, the horses and me time to recover.  The following day we were just going to take a short ride to some bluffs to the northeast to get a great picture of the camp, but ran into a fence so traversed across the valley to the southwest hoping to get up on some hills there.  We succeeded...the ride took 2 hours though, which was not as short as we had hoped.  Nevertheless, it was a great ride.  We got Moe to take this picture of us at the top of the knoll.  This is the same knoll you can see in the previous picture of Moe, that has the branch pointing at it on the right.

I was so tickled at how well Dave and Treasure got along.  It is going to be a lot of fun to have someone who wants to share the horses with me!

After we left the Wilderness, we stopped briefly in Ft. Robinson to refresh our water supply and dump our tanks, then stopped in Crawford for a few groceries and hardware.

We made our way to Toadstool Geologic Park thinking we could camp there, but the whole campground was filled with a deaf group that was doing some high tech filming.  We hiked the 1 mile loop to see the toadstools...flat sandstone rocks, perched on clay "stems."  This area has the most fossils and tracks of any area in the US representing its supposed geologic time period.  It was very interesting and very barren.

Now we are near Oral, SD boondocking in the yard of Laurie and Jon...hosts on www.boondockerswelcome.com.  This is our first boondocker host and they have been wonderfully accommodating even though they have not been home much.  Thanks Laurie and Jon!

Next week...the Badlands of South Dakota!