About Schmidt|Louisville State Recreation Area — A Winnebago on the Platte

Warren sets out west in the 35-foot Adventurer that Helen bought and he never wanted, and the first nights of that trip put him in campgrounds among people who are actually enjoying themselves. Payne filmed the RV-park material at Louisville State Recreation Area, off Nebraska Highway 50 on the south bank of the Platte River, about half an hour south-west of Omaha.

It is 192 acres of cottonwoods and five old sandpit lakes, with a couple of hundred electrical pads and swimming on one of the lakes. The Platte runs along the southern edge — wide, brown, ankle-deep in places, braided around sandbars, a river that looks less like water than like wet land. Nebraska Game and Parks runs it and anyone can pull in for the night with a park entry permit.

Walk down to the riverbank at dusk and the scene explains itself. The Platte gives you an enormous sky and absolutely nothing to do under it, which is exactly the condition Warren has been handed and has no idea how to fill.

Photo: Platte River, Wikimedia Commons.