Home Sweet Homestead

It was now time to work on our  project of visiting all ~430 National Park Service  sites. We passed the halfway point earlier this year but still have plenty remaining. Despite our many cross-country road trips, there are a handful of parks that were just a little too far off our route to make it into prior plans.  We decided to slow things down this time and take the roads less traveled to fill in the gaps.

We meandered through Nebraska and Kansas to pick up two more park sites. First up was Homestead National Historical Park.  As the name implies, it is a site dedicated to those who used the Homestead Act to build lives out West.  In addition to the traditional historic farm equipment, we saw some interesting things like the goat treadmill powered butter churn. Yes, it really was a thing, and no, I didn’t think that was a phrase I’d ever type. We explored the museum and wandered the grounds, enjoying being the only visitors in the park.

The second park of the day was Nicodemus National Historic Site, which celebrates the oldest and only remaining African American settlement west of the Mississippi.  We walked the local streets to view the historic buildings, toured the museum, and chatted with the park Rangers (one of whom is from Ohio) about the past and present of Nicodemus. 

We finished the day by driving to the Goodland KOA in far western Kansas. Gareth now has his drivers learner permit and got some practice driving on the rural roads of Kansas along the way.