Day 7: 4/28/19 Kearney to Sterling, CO

Sherlock's GOM this morning remembers the tough day against the wind yesterday, and only promises 197 miles (more realistic, given the high winds).  After picking up my car in Kearney, Pam took me out for breakfast and she drove Sherlock around the block to get a little idea of how she handles.  Then we said our goodbyes, and I headed west.  My original intent was to camp tonight in Ogallala, Nebraska's McConaughy Lake area.  But it remained cold and storms were coming.

I stopped in a little town (Gothenburg) to see an original Pony Express station.  I was surprised to learn the Pony Express was only in existence for 18 months.

After 150 miles with a SE crosswind, I pulled into Ogallala having 47 miles on the GOM (pretty good!).  I charged at the downtown police station for a couple of hours, and took the opportunity to walk around and stretch my legs.  I thought about breaking the bike out, but it was too cold and windy for my taste.  Since it's Sunday, there's not much open except for restaurants and gas stations... was hoping to visit the local library, but closed.  From this spot, it's about 240 miles to get to Wendy and Pat's in Denver.  My plan has shifted from camping to a hotel.

While walking about in Ogallala, I took in a tour of the downtown area, neighborhood streets, and ended up in a museum near where I was parked.  Found a pictures of Samuel and Harriet Gast, who ran the Ogallala House (hotel and restaurant) in 1876.  Not sure if they are relatives or not...

From here, I continued west 44  miles to find a fast charger.  The charger was off the beaten path a bit, and powered by a wind turbine.  Unfortunately, the gentleman's (Jeff's) turbine had been broken since last fall, so he asked for $20 to cover the charging.  Happy to do it (for you mileage nerds reading this, it would been worth about $12 at a conventional fast charger run by Electrify America or ChargePoint).  In the picture below, you can see the turbine on its side in the field.  Jeff came out and chatted with me for a bit before going in to make his supper, and I had mine (cold pea soup... thank you Marybeth).

 

All around me, clouds were gathering and it still windy and getting colder.  I was increasingly glad I had decided not to make a tent my home for the night.  From starting my charge with 83 miles on the GOM, and charged up to 80% of my battery's capacity in about an hour.  At 4:30, I left for Sterling, CO (~50 miles) where Barb had reserved a room for me at the Super 8.

The motel was warm and pleasant enough.  I took a drive downtown and walked about the town for about an hour, taking in the local sites... then paused at a library to read another few pages of the Mueller Report.  Yes, I am trying to slog my way through that report... on about page 130 of about 400+ of Part I.  Eeek!

My thought was that I would charge at an RV park in the morning, enough to carry me the last 100 miles to Pat and Wendy's.  Here's where I discovered a mistake that I made.  When filtering results on my PlugShare app, which I use to find charging stations, I had mistakenly been filtering out charging stations that cost $$ to charge (though several of the ones I've used have required remuneration). Once I saw that, I flipped it back on to find that there was a fast charger in Fort Morgan, about 45 miles from Sterling located in a Walmart Superstore parking lot.  Yippee!  I'm headed to Walmart in the morning (I don't say that every day)!