Stop #8: Wilson State Park
- Aaron Rose
- Feb 6, 2022
- 10 min read
Updated: Feb 9, 2022
From Lake Shawnee Campgrounds (Kansas) to Wilson State Park (Kansas)
Travel Dates: 7/14/2020 to 7/17/2020
Drive Time: 2 hours 38 minutes covering 170 miles (273 km)
I woke up way later than I planned to. Woops! I hadn't slept well though so it’s ok that I tried to get more sleep before I left. It was a short travel day so I had plenty of time to waste. Once on the highway, I had already preplanned as stop at a Flying J gas station about an hour from my destination, as I knew I could use my Good Sam discount there to save some money on gas. When your tank is 55 gallons, any discount quickly adds up!
Arriving at the Flying J, I found they had a Huddle House! How could I pass this opportunity to get one of my favorite breakfasts! Inside I found that there were only two other tables being used and that this restaurant was minimizing it’s capacity to around 50% to allow for easy social distancing. Kansas had just put into effect a mandate that everyone where a mask in settings like this and it was good to see the employees as well as other patrons doing so. I even noticed hand sanitizer available at the counter where you pay which had been a rare sight at most of the places I had stopped at. My meal came out quickly and was exactly how I liked it. Bacon super crispy and packed with flavor, waffles well done so they had a little crispness to the outside while being fluffy in the middle, hash browns crispy, and eggs scrambled nicely. I also had the biscuit and gravy, but that was a little too much for even me that day. Take a look below and tell me it doesn't look tasty!
After paying, I headed out to my RV to decide if I’d get gas here like I had originally planned or get it further down the road and when I checked the prices again to see if anything had changed and they had! Gas at my current location went down 10 cents! Sweet! Had to get gas here now.....but damn! Two RV’s in front of me. Going to take a bit to get to the RV pumps. With how much I was about to save, from the price drop and the additional 5 cents from the Good Sam discount card, I was happy to wait a few minutes to fill up. Now, I didn’t really “need” the gas, but I felt it was better to get it and have a nearly full tank upon arriving at the campground than not be able to find something suitable closer. I also decided to stop by a Walmart on the way as I needed to pick up some more groceries as well as get a drying rack for my dishes. I thought I could use the collapsible strainers I had gotten, but it just wasn’t working out as well as I wanted it to and they weren’t getting done in a timely fashion. I figured having a real drying rack would help me stay on top of it better as well. While there, I decided to also pick up a tower fan to use outside the RV. It's something I was kicking myself over not bringing as I had two back at my parents house. It was a luxury not only for the outside, but would be something that would make my life a lot more enjoyable on the inside of the RV too as I wouldn’t have to run the A/C as much. A good investment to be sure!
Continuing on to the park, I noticed in the distance a large group of what looked like metal polls sticking up on a hilly area. What could these be? Any quesses?
I got excited when I realized these were likely the giant windmills I knew were in the area. Sure enough, as I continued driving on I could see that was exactly what they were. The first batch was nice, but as I rounded a bend in the road I saw there were dozens if not hundreds more!!! Some were even right by the roadside so I was able to get some some decent photos while driving by.
Taking the exit to my campground, I realized I had forgotten to pickup ice at Walmart and decided to stop at the local store right there by the exit. As I walked in, I saw lots of notices about social distancing and being careful to not spread covid to others. Then I saw the clerk wasn’t wearing a mask as the notice stated was the law. He was also very unfriendly when I greeted him and then wanted to charge me $5.99 for a 20 lbs bag of ice. That was ridiculous! I knew there would be a bit of a markup, but not almost $3!!!! The man was either stupid, didn’t care about selling ice, or just didn’t want to be nice to me. I promptly said no thank you and left. Seriously, nearly $20 after tax for 3 bags of frozen water…..I don’t think so! I had looked at the bags to make sure the freezer outside had ice and the bags had freezer burn all over them so it sure looked like no-one was buying ice from here.
This seemed to start a trend for this area of Kansas though. I stopped by the rangers office to check in to the campground and the ranger was only slightly more friendly, but still didn’t seem to want to deal with me and was in a hurry to get me out of her office. Now I was wearing a mask as required, but she wasn’t. Nor was there hand sanitizer available like everywhere else I’d been. What was going on here? Oh well, I wasn't going to let this get in my way of enjoying my stay.
I made my way to my campsite and was delighted to find I was directly on the shore of the lake with an unobstructed view of the water and sunset. After backing in, my bedroom window was literally 10 feet from the water. HOW COOL IS THIS!!! The sky was a bit overcast, but there wasn’t rain and after setting up camp, I settled in and started to relax. While the campground was packed, slowly a few spots opened up and I was left without a neighbor on both sides of me. Nice!
It was 2 am, maybe 2:30, and Isabelle came to the bed and jumped up meowing loudly and woke me up. It took me a second, but then I noticed the flashes of light even without my glasses on. I heard the rain pounding down on the RV and the wind whipping by and then the boom of thunder racing through the sky above me. Putting my glasses on and consoling Isabelle, I opened my window shade and was amazed by what I was seeing. It was a crazy lightshow in the sky, constantly being lit up by lightening streaks near and far. Some blindingly bright and others just dim enough to change the sky to a lighter darkness. And it just kept going and going. I finally had the sense to take out my phone and capture a few minutes of this as I hoped it would show up well enough that I could share with everyone. While it didn’t pick up everything, it picked up enough to show the craziness. The video clip below shows a little of this. First, two short lightening flashes and then a massive succession of flashes. Look for the tree on the peninsula. After watching for an hour or so and consoling Izzy a few more times to get her to calm down and realize everything was ok, I finally was able to get back to sleep.
The next morning I went outside to find the temperature to be nice and cool. Cool enough even that I barely ran the A/C throughout the day and decided to open up all the windows instead. I also made use of the new tower fan I got when things warmed up just a bit more than I liked while inside working on the computer, but spent most of my morning outside under the awning enjoying the views of the lake and watching the people walking and driving up and down the street. I was content to do little more than sit and drink my coffee and sit outside for most of the day. In the early afternoon, I did tear myself away to spend some much needed time on the computer catching up with my journaling. I wasn't paying attention and used a considerable amount of data watching YouTube and Netflix as my mobile phone was working off roaming and the connection was unbearably slow otherwise. In fact I’d used so much that I would likely run out by the following day if I wasn’t careful about how I used it. Luckily I have a second sim card with an additional 15 GB of data on it, but the device was showing me I had unlimited rather than 15 GB, so I didn’t realize how fast I was going through it. I’ve since set up my computers webpages to show the jetpack webpage 1st, so I can check my remaining data before I start working so I can better use it going forward.
There was a short afternoon shower that left a beautiful rainbow over the lake that I noticed while working at the dinette in the RV. In terms of natural beautiful, this campground had been great, until the flies came out to wreak havoc! There are SO MANY flies here!!! When you opened the bin to add your trash, hundreds of flies would fly out at you. Why? Because the garbage bins were overflowing and no-one was coming to empty them! This made me start to realize how little upkeep they do at this park. If they took away the garbage more often, this likely wouldn’t be an issue and make staying here even better, but I stayed for 3 nights and they never emptied the trash while I was there.
My 3rd day here, I had a few goals in mind. One was to continue with my journal entries to catch up and the second to go for a nature hike on the nearby Dakota Trail. The day was beautiful so I also figured I’d spend a lot of time outside today sitting in my chair and enjoying the weather. After making some good progress on my journal entries, I went and sat outside for a bit to unwind before deciding to go for my hike just in case the weather turned bad like yesterday surprise afternoon rain shower. I also figured I could take a shower when I finished as the trail started and finished right by the bathhouse, making it very convenient after hiking out under the hot sun!
Starting down the trail, I found it to be well maintained, however this quickly changed. The trail split into two, with what seemed like the better option lined with wood that led to an area where the trail was overgrown with grass. This didn’t seem right to me, so I decided to check the other non-outlined path and found that one to be wider and without grass growing out of it. As I climbed up the hill, I eventually met back up with the other section of overgrown trail. As I made my way I up, I saw a number of green headed lizards called Six-Lined Racerunner’s. They looked really cool and were very fast. They also didn’t seem to be too scared of humans, letting you get within a few feet of them before darting off into the brush. Once I made it to the top of the hill I found a bench where I gladly sat down for a bit and enjoyed the views.
Here at the bench the trail split once again. I decided to walk to the right and started to descend when I saw that the trail connected with another trail from the left. I decided to hike that was to extend my hike, but this turned out to be both a good and not so good option. The views of the lake opened up and I was able to see the dam off in the distance as well as the bridge I came in on…however the trail quickly became very overgrown and I had to pick my way through using the dirt patches.
At one point I wondered if there were any snakes I should be worried about and sure enough I saw one. Luckily it was very small, maybe 6-8 inches in length called an eastern yellow bellied racer (blue racer). Otherwise I only came upon those green headed lizards and lots and lots of grasshoppers.
Eventually the trail opened up again and connected back to the spot I thought it might and continued on till I came to the downhill portion.
Once again the trail split into two with a section outlined in wood being overgrown and the dirt path being just fine. The dirt path added a few minutes to the decent, but I eventually made my way to the end seeing where the other overgrown trail ended.
Finishing up the loop, I entered an overgrown field next to the bathroom & shower building. Obviously the Kansas park rangers hadn't been maintain the Dakota Trail, although the closures earlier in the year due to covid may be part of that. Still, I wish the trail had been better maintained as well as more signage so you knew if you were going the right way. I also don't think many people hike the trail since there wasn't even a defined path through the field to the bathroom building.
Still, I found this to be the perfect time for that shower after baking under the bright sun for the last hour or so! Unfortunately, I’d once again be disappointed by the upkeep at this Kansas park. The shower rooms were pretty dirty and the shower I used wouldn’t turn off and sprayed everywhere getting my shoes and clothes wet. Why they didn’t have hooks to hang your belongings on baffles me! The shower's water was also quite hot, which I found to be the opposite of what I wanted at that time and there was no way to control the temperature. I promptly ended my shower wrapped myself in a towel and I made my way to another empty shower room to get dressed and then returned to the RV. The sunset that night was stunning! The perfect way to end the night!
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