Day 123 - Prairie Dogs & Victoria Springs State Recreational Area, NE

We packed up and left our campsite at Badlands, stopping off at a few more pullouts and overlooks in the way to admire the coloured rocks in the morning sun.

We headed out of the park and towards the town of Cactus Flats where we were looking for a giant prairie dog we had read about in Atlas Obscura. Apparently it was the Worlds largest prairie dog, of course.

Since first coming across prairie dogs for the first time in North Dakota, we’ve both got a little obsessed with these cuties, especially Lee who given a chance would try to smuggle one into the car to take with us!

We found the giant prairie dog (which wasn't difficult on a very long flat road) and headed into the store to buy some unsalted peanuts to feed them with. We were both a little torn about feeding them as it disrupts their natural instinct and makes they rely on this food rather than foraging their own but we learnt that prairie dogs were under threat from construction taking the land they would have previously lived on and farmers seeing them as a pest. Whilst places like this are not great for the welfare of a few prairie dogs, it is making people more aware of this animal and their plight so maybe on a grand scale, it not that bad if the species is to survive. We also found out that as these prairie dogs were so friendly, they could be used into research into fleas to help their wild counterparts who are dying in large numbers from a plague spread by fleas. We were told to not be surprised if a researcher was trapping the prairie dogs and brushing them for flees, they were seeing the effects of a new treatment.

With all our peanuts gone, we headed back on the road where we left South Dakota behind and enter Nebraska. We were forewarned about Nebraska, a number of people we met asked us why we were going to Nebraska as there was "a whole lot of nothing" but we wanted to tick it off the list and see for ourselves all the corn.

We avoided the interstate for most of the journey, instead taking Highway 83 and then the supposedly Scenic Highway 2. This road was not particularly scenic, more dull and monotonous, even the towns we went through were very small farming towns many containing just a couple of houses and a church.

We stopped off for lunch in one of the larger towns called Valentine where found a restaurant called the Peppermill. The food was really good and after feeling rested, we headed off again on the final part of our journey.

We were staying at Victoria Springs State Recreation Area tonight, a small state run park with a campground. As we drove closer to this park, we realised just how small it was on the map and that it was located almost in the middle of nowhere. We had hoped to find a store next to the campsite to buy wood but the little town close by had no store, the nearest one was going to be a long drive away. It was good thing we had already bought food for the night otherwise we would have been surviving on breakfast bars!

The park itself contains a large pond with a few cabins around the outside. In its heyday, it was a mineral spring that was bottled and sold around the US. Today, I think its a park families come to in the summer for a couple of days to relax and get away for normal life.

We arrived to find the campsite empty apart from the hosts' RV. We were told by the host that although we had pre-booked a site, we could choose any site we wanted as we were the only ones staying for the night. We moved site to the other end of the campsite, away from the trees to an open grassy area with wood behind us and a vault toilet within walking distance.

Everyone in the US we have met have been incredible friendly, kind and generous, this is one of things we love about America. The people we met in Nebraska were lovely. The groundsman helped us find the campsite when we first came into the park and then brought us free firewood, the host helped us when we didn’t have change for the $8 entrance fee and brought us over a fresh tomato grown in her friends garden for us to have with dinner and the park ranger was really interested to hear more about our story and again asked us why we'd come to Nebraska. I don't think they get many out of state people visit this part of Nebraska, let alone people from another country.

That evening, Lee built a fire and cooked a lovely dinner. Unfortunately we weren't the only things eating that night and both of us became dinner for the bugs so we retreated into the tent early.

You'll hear from the video that we heard some interesting animals during the night. I was freaked out as we were pretty much alone (apart from the host at the other end of the campsite safe in their RV) and the park was in the middle of a lot of corn fields. There are too many scary movies involving corn fields! We found out in the morning that the "horse-owl" was in fact a huge owl that lived in the woods behind us and the yapping was Coyotes.