I spent two days at Sleepy Sunflower RV Park in Ogallala, NE, mostly because I felt like taking a day off from travel, and there was a big storm rolling down into South Dakota north of Ogallala a hundred miles or so, but covering the area where I’d be traveling. The days when I’d make a dash somewhere, traveling day after day, for up to 7 days, are gone. I’m just not going to do that anymore, preferring to do a leisurely trip and stop for a couple days in one place before driving on. I don’t miss driving every day either. That was caused by not having a car mostly, but I’ve always packed a bicycle and tried to choose places to stay that had interesting places I could access nearby. Now that I have a towed car, I can stay practically anywhere and not have to worry about getting around easily over longer distances. Makes for easier grocery shopping for one thing. Or checking out auto repair shops, local points of interest, museums, or getting something for the RV at a hardware store.
When planning this days travel, I found that Burwell, Nebraska has a city park with RV spaces. Though it’s in the middle of nowhere, it’s about halfway between Ogallala and Sioux Falls, SD which was my destination this portion of the trip.
Here’s a look at the countryside around here as I headed north, leaving I-80 behind. Nice comfortable drive on a nice warm day.
And boom…there’s this snow! WTH? 
And then I remembered why I’d stayed in Ogallala for an extra night. To let this storm pass over the areas I planned on driving. My planning saw that I missed this storm by one day, and it had passed to the north of Ogallala so I’d not noticed any poor weather from it. There was snow on the crest of nearly every hill I drove over in the drainage ditches and alongside the road but always on the north slopes except one spot where it was so thick, there was still snow on both sides of the road. And these aren’t mountains by any stretch of the imagination. 
Here’s the outside temp as I passed one of the snow piles. The storm was the last gasp of winter in this area. 
There’s not much out here, and the towns are small and far between, though a couple of them had interesting features.
But mostly the trip was through country like this. 
My GPS brought me into Burwell and to the city park easily enough, and since I only traveled for around 4 hours, fairly early. The roads I’d traveled were all 2 lane back country roads…paved, but isolated with few services and just a few small towns to pass through.
Once I arrived at the park, just before 1 pm, had to park in the roadway inside the park while I walked around trying to find the RV spaces and eventually, did find them. I was initially a bit disappointed as they were right alongside the roadway so you’d be parked all night just off the side of the road, in an exposed area. A cop pulled in about then and I asked him about petty theft here in the park and he tells me that there wasn’t any to speak of.
The ground alongside much of the roadway was a bit lumpy as it had been graded a few days before and they hadn’t come back over it with a roller to flatten it out. And then I spotted some more spots past the tennis court area. They were bigger and newer, with 50 amp service available at brand new service towers for RV’ers. Yea!
Chose the first spot along the road that I would fit in. Nice spot. Had a covered BBQ area for a group, and a nice picnic table. Although the ground was a bit lumpy, eventually I found a place I could get the rig level. Not bad for $8/night, paid at one of those honor system kiosks. But there’s no Wifi, so I had to burn up some data on my phone plan to get online while tethered to my computer.
Since it was so early in the day, I went ahead and unhooked my car, got the RV set up and plugged in, and then wandered around this interesting city park. The North Loup River flows through here and makes an interesting and pleasant backdrop for the park.
And there is this fallen down bridge. I looked for any signs or explanations for this ruin, but didn’t find anything that explained it. 
Looking downstream a bit. Those islands appear and disappear as river conditions change I guess. 
As I mentioned, when I arrived, I couldn’t see where the RV park was, so I walked all around this huge area trying to find places for RVs. Didn’t see any. Did find several really nice picnic areas for families, and a big sports park area. Lots of grass and plenty of shade when the trees finally leaf out. Very nice park, I’m impressed. Now if they would only install free Wifi, that’d be great, and would fill this park with RV’ers I’m sure. Great way to attract tourists too if they know there’s free Wifi. I would have stayed 2-3 days if the park had had Wifi. As it was, my data plan was getting short of data so I had to limit my usage while here.
In my first walk around the loop driveway in the park, I couldn’t spot anything that looked like it was parking for RVs. Until I got back within 50 feet from where I’d started. Hadn’t noticed this sign from where I’d parked and started my walk about. Doh! Well, I enjoyed the walk anyway. But I didn’t care for this particular spot. Or the one behind me next to the tennis court fence. The unfinished scrapings by the grader made the spot near the fence problematic. 
There’s a road back behind me from where I took the above picture, and after a bit of searching on foot up that road I noticed the 2-3 power towers for RVs. And some towers in that area have 20-30-50 amp outlets instead of the 30 amp the older spots have. Newer stands apparently. Not exactly level spots, but certainly worth the $8/night they asked. I donated a bit and paid $15 for the one night I stayed here. With the hope that they keep improving it. And here’s a shot of where I parked. Room for guests too. 
Soon I was all settled in.
Here’s the view from my space. Not bad. I kept the curtains in the front of the RV open to enjoy the view all day and late into the night. 
See the roadwork that’s been done? It seemed that the grader had come by a couple days before I arrived and scraped the roads all over the park. I’d imagine it was pretty lumpy and hard to navigate when it was wet and as soon as it dried out a bit, the city maintenance crews got the grader down here to the park (thanks folks!). Probably impossible to park here earlier in the month, or at least not very inviting for a big RV after a winter of snow and rain. I’m glad I arrived in late April after all the storms. The city should consider laying down a layer of recycled tire/gravel to stabilize the roads and prevent erosion. 
That big farm field over there showed no signs that I could see of an old road leading up to the ruined bridge. There was a stand of trees going to the left that could have hidden a deteriorating road, I couldn’t tell.
These big chunks of concrete on my side of the river may have been portions of the ruined bridge at one time? 
Since I’d gotten to town so early, did some exploring in my car and eventually, parked and wandered around the downtown core.
Here’s a link to a Google Earth view of the downtown core: Burwell, NE Downtown It isn’t a very interesting downtown core. I’m surprised they didn’t consider putting in a city park plaza there for speeches, town meetings, high school bands and such back when they built the town.
And pretty soon it was time for a 4:00 beer after exploring downtown on foot. Mostly closed businesses and a few that showed signs that they were only periodic type places, open only during special events. See that a lot in older towns looking like this one these days. But that’s how it’s always been. 
After exploring downtown and enjoying a beer, headed back to my RV spot, but first took a slight detour and drove over to that farm field where the ruined bridge connected. And there’s not a darned thing there that would explain it, no roads towards it, no signs. The bartender didn’t know anything about it either. Here’s a Google earth shot from above that shows the ruined bridge and the field. Scant evidence there use to be a road going to that construction but perhaps? Maybe hidden by that row of trees heading towards the dam? I’m going to contact the historical society in the area and ask them about it. Fascinating.
Nice and relaxing wandering around this city park. Saw a couple boys playing in the river, had fishing poles over on the bank too. Took the picture during one of their rest periods. Tried to not show their faces due to privacy issues these days on the internet. A nice place for boys (and girls) to play, maybe do some fishing. Maybe some rock skipping. Noticed them play for an hour, these kids reminded me of both my own free and unsupervised childhood, and of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. Also reminded me that I’m not lucky enough to have any grandkids. Well, it happens. Not sad about it, but…
And that’s it from Burwell, Nebraska. Next time I head to Sioux Falls.
Thanks for reading!
We found during our 2 months in Nebraska that nearly every town of any size has a city park with RV parking. The facilities may vary, but the price is commonly between 0 to $10. Often we were the only ones there. We stayed weeks at Tekamah’s (my father’s birthplace) and enjoyed nightly school baseball games out our front window. For WiFi I simply drove or walked to the city’s library, as I’ve done many, many times in any town with one. They left it on at night, so I could sit with my laptop on the front steps or under a shade tree out back.
Good info to have. I’ll try to remember that the next time I travel through NE. I’ve stayed in a few city sponsored parks over the years and always appreciated them. They tend to be much more common in the mid-west and east.
Many rural Midwest towns still deeply believe in Libraries… and baseball, thank goodness (not a soccer goal to be found). They do whatever they can to fund such things, and museums too. Commonly manned by volunteers, these much appreciated venues exemplify their old-fashioned dedication to their kids and histories.
That’s still true in many western towns as well.
Whether there’s money left in often limited coffers to create and maintain RV sites in their parks varies, and probably depends on local financial powers that be. But we were grateful to have found some degree of facilities in practically every Nebraska hamlet or city, and came not to worry much if we were caught approaching evening yet on the road, and having not reserved a spot anywhere ahead. There was always gonna be a spot in the next town. Can’t say that about every State or Province.
I’ll likely be passing through NE much more often now that my daughter lives in Minneapolis and my DL and vehicle registrations are in South Dakota so I’ll have the opportunity to test your theory over the next few years. That’ll be fun.
Nice photo of your dash electronics.
No concern over petty theft! A couple weeks back I parked my pickup on the street overnite. Noticed there were a lot of vertical black marks above the gas door. Most likely from a hose.
Texas has rest stops along some of the U.S. highways, some on the internet have stated. Where RVs can overnite. “Nomadic Fanatic” on Youtube has videos of his travels. Not a plug for him, just that when I had unlimited DSL i followed him. Not wanting to abuse my unlimited mifi, I cut my video viewing in half.
Safe and happy travels, Jim!
I wasn’t too worried about petty theft really, but I did want to talk to the cop and let him know I’d be there overnight. Plus in many small towns there’s sometimes a family or two that try to take advantage of travelers, and the cops know that and will let you know. They’re usually full of useful information, where to eat, bars in town that are fun, museums or POI, that sort of thing. So I’m happy to go talk to them when they cruise by.
You have safe and happy travels too, Sam!