Lake McConaughy

First of all, I can never remember how to spell the name. It has a nickname, as all long named things do. Either Lake Mac or Big Mac. It's the largest lake in Nebraska and man made, formed by the creation of a dam in the 1930-1940's. It is located in Western/ West Central Nebraska (Exit 126 on I-80 out of about 460 miles of interstate). I have fallen in love with it. And I think I know why.

1. It is a huge body of water that is wonderfully refreshing in the middle of Nebraska.

2. It is so not over commercialized it's amazing. The shore is almost all part of Lake McConaughy State Park, so it is open to the public. You can literally camp wherever (I'm serious, their official policy is on any mowed areas or the beach, camping is allowed) but it isn't over crowded. There are a fair amount of little tiny independent convenience stores around the lake that aren't overpriced.  

3. Despite all the primative camping, still a good amount of real bath houses with showers and vault toilets that are so new they spell like a new car inside!

4. At least half the sites are first come first serve, so it is the perfect park for last minute trips! We were tenting it and had no problems finding a site. With an rv it may have been a little tougher, especially if you wanted electricity or water/sewer hook ups.

I met my friend from Denver there because it is almost exactly halfway between us and then hubby and his friend drove out for the second night. It was maybe 100 degrees the whole weekend, without taking into account the heat index. But the water was perfectly refreshing and we spent as much time as we could in it, under the shade of the trees on the shoreline. There isn't a lot of sandy beaches, some of the locals told us it was about 95% full and that they should be emptying water via the dam by the end of July. I hope to make it back at least one more time this summer, but it is about 4.5 hours from Lincoln.

The site I picked, there was a small path down to the water, but
it was a four foot drop to the beach, so we only swam there once.

So much stuff!

The lake view from our campsite.

Lake McConaughy also doesn't have firepits and you can
make a fire anywhere it's safe, preferably surrounded by rocks.
We went with the grill, mainly because we also needed to cook
over it for dinner.

Near our site was a picnic shelter were we hid during a brief rainstorm.
Another awesome view of the lake.

Ryan pumping gas at the convenience store by our campground.