The 16 State Geo-Adventure - The Beginning

State #1 - South Dakota
State #2 - Iowa
State #3 - Nebraska

Our first geocaching goal was near Nebraska City, NE. We stayed 3 nights at

Our NE geocaching took us on country roads.

no guard rails on these bridges

We crossed way too many of these One Lane Bridge bridges. But if they hold big farm tractors and harvesting machines, I guess they will hold a NEW half-ton truck. Thankfully, the country back roads were rather quiet. Harvesting was happening, but we did not have any trouble with grain trucks or combines running us off the narrow roads.

We accomplished our goal at the end of Day 2 in Nebraska City. We had some other caches in mind for the next day. We crossed the border into Iowa, about 4 miles from the campground. On most of the geocaching trips, I am the driver and Hubby is the runner. We do switch jobs on long days like the girl geo-art. Sometimes, our adventures take us on minimum maintenance roads. Such was the case in Iowa.

There is a 6' drop-off and a corn field on the left of the road and a pond of water on the right side. We had driven in about 0.20 of a mile when we decided to go no farther. Hubby scoped out the road beyond what you are seeing in the photo. MUD. DEEP RUTS. I backed out...Yes, backed up about 0.20 mile, keeping it between the corn field and the water. Hubby walked to the cache, about 0.3 mile and back a half-mile.

There was another cache on this road 0.75 mile ahead. He said I should check it out. It also had mud and deep ruts, so once again I backed up about a quarter mile this time. We did not get that cache! This road was a little wider and did not have the deep ditch or water hazard.

Somebody with a bigger outfit than ours made these tracks. They were about 16 inches deep. Notice the water hazard.

I could easily back up on that narrow road thanks to the wonderful back-up camera in the truck. I love it! (No, I did not take the photo while actually driving!) That camera makes backing to the camper hitch a breeze, and is an improvement over the 2014 truck's camera.

After that harrowing experience (easy, but still a bit unnerving) in the morning, we headed back to the Nebraska country roads for some interesting geocaches.

William Trout

"Old Bill, as he was known, was a local bachelor farmer in the new state of Nebraska shortly after the Civil War. He was one of the founders of this rural church in 1878. It is a Methodist church, which explains the church’s ME inscription. In 2005 the church was re-roofed and minor repairs completed.
Reportedly Bill never tired of telling stories of his adventures with General Custer during the Civil War. As a member of the Sixth Regiment (Colonel George Gray commanding) of the Michigan Cavalry Brigade (General George A. Custer commanding), he was one of “Custer’s Wolverines”. The regiment participated in battles in and around Gettysburg and saw action throughout the War under Custer. After relocating to Nebraska, Bill was active in the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Chapter in Nebraska City.
(An interesting side note, during the war, the Sixth Cavalry lost 75 men from battle wounds, but 247 from disease.)"

Grand Army of the Republic

one of the headstones in the cemetery

the Methodist Church Bill helped start

looked like it was still active, or at least maintained

this school was in operation for almost 140 years

not this building, but the school in District 2

it is NOT maintained

Off to Kansas, state #4...

RV parks and campgrounds have TERRIBLE wifi service. My apologies for late and non-existant blog posts. Be patient; I'll get the worthy stuff published, eventually.