We took a slight detour on our way to Windmill State Park, into Kansas. We missed it between St. Louis and Kansas City because it was poor weather and a fairly long drive. Nebraska along Highway 80 had some rolling hills and was mostly green from all the rain. I swear you turn into Kansas and it gets flat. Like real flat and grasslands. You know you are in the prairie, for sure. Where we were was mostly cattle in the field, and alfalfa farms although we did see a couple wheat farms. But mostly it was a whole lotta nothing! Not that returning to Nebraska was a whole lotta anything either. At least there are rolling hills!!
The big river here is the Republican River. Yep, you read that right. It isn’t really big but it was flowing fast because there had been a fair amount of overnight rain. Eventually it joins the Missouri River. We stayed at Windmill campground that is near the Platt River. Which has no, zero, none waterfowl on it!! The campground was pretty nice and has 4 fishing ponds on it which were busy both days we were there. There are a couple of trails around and through the ponds but we found a few dead ends and some backtracking. This park does have windmills on it. Annoyingly, even with a camping reservation, you also have to pay a day vehicle pass. Another $10/ day because we are not residents. Not breaking the bank, but just add it to the reservation fee or something. Since none of the registration booths are open, we had to go back and fill out paperwork. They did have a camp host RIGHT next to us who wanted to remind us to get that pass. Ugh. But also a decent little laundromat so we didn’t have to go into town.
We tried going to the Audubon Reserve which 1) is closed for massive construction until 4/2025 and 2) had very few birds around. Apparently this area is a major Crane migration stopover but we missed that. And there were NO water birds even though the Platt looked like an ideal duck and goose spot. No idea of why there were truly no fowl there.
So it was a decent stopover place for us for 2 nights but you certainly would not want to plan more time there unless you REALLY like fishing. No boats on the lakes and only one you can swim in. Westward again!