I set my alarm with enough time to shower and get down to the free breakfast in the hotel, just in case the kids all slept in. I woke them up to tell them I was leaving and they all said they wanted to go with me except for K. She just didn't want to get out of bed and asked me to bring her some cereal and set it on a tray on the little table she had set up next to her bed the night before. I headed to go get some breakfast and Jessey and I were surprised to see the kid who had played Linus in the play the night before in the hotel cafe. He was there with his brothers and mom and dad and grandparents and it suddenly dawned on us that we had seen dorms on the map of the community college last night. His family must have lived in a town farther away and spent the night in Rock Springs to see his performance. So different from the community colleges back home where there are several choices so close by. We wanted to be sure to tell him how much we enjoyed the play in front of his family, so we took some time to do that before we headed back upstairs. A and C spent a lot of time getting breakfast put together for K, including cereal, fruit, hot chocolate, juice, a bagel, and a waffle with three choices of toppings. They went to deliver it to her while I ran out to the car to grab the swimsuits since this hotel had an indoor pool and the girls wanted to swim for a bit.
When I got back up to hotel room, I found K sitting on the bed like a princess eating her breakfast. She was so excited and it was such a sweet moment for her to have her sisters serve her like that.
We had about two hours until we had to check out of the hotel so I told the girls they could swim for an hour and then we would shower and change and leave. It ended up being a little longer, but it was kind of funny because "Linus's" three little brothers were in the pool with the girls, so it was fun for them to have someone to play with, and it allowed me to get a few things done, like yesterday's blog.
I also made reservations at a campground in Nebraska for the night.
We hit the grocery store in town to stock up and then we hit the road. I know I keep saying it, but eastern Wyoming so beautiful! It was super-windy, with gusts over 40mph, but the scenery was so pretty with the 10,000+ elevation mountain peaks, snowy patches everywhere on the ground, and the gorgeous red rock formations in the Medicine Bow National Forest. We pulled off the road at some random point to play in the snow a little bit and A and K also took some time to talk to and look at a bunch of cows with their calves.
We stopped in Cheyenne for a few minutes to check directions and arrival times and were sad to realize that we were getting into camp so late and couldn't take the time to drive up to Wheatland where my dad was born. It was 70 miles out of the way and we just couldn't lose nearly 2.5 hours at that point. Sorry, Dad! :( We did, however, cheat a bit and add a state to our repertoire by taking a little 3 mile trip out of the way to cross the border into Colorado. A little ways after you enter Nebraska, Hwy 80 dips down within a few miles of the Colorado border, so we made our way down a tiny rural road and snapped this quick photo.
Omce back on Hwy 80, our campground was just a little further into Nebraska in a town called Brule, which was near a town called Ogallala, which was just way too much fun to say so late at night. The campground was called Eagle Canyon Hideway and I see now why they named it that, because it was certainly hidden from us. Nearly a dozen miles off the freeway in the absolute middle of nowhere, including 6 miles on an unmarked dirt road, it took us more than a little while to find it, especially since Google Maps told us to take a 'road' that turned out to be the golf cart trail on a lakeside golf course (which I refused, thank goodness. My poor car would never have made it). We did eventually find it and got all setup just in time to go to sleep, again. We'll get better at this. I'm sure of it!
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