Ponca State Park, Nebraska - June 24th to 27th, 2026

Ponca State Park was our next stop as we continued to make our way towards Chicago to start Route 66. It was a great state park and we managed to mingle some with the locals.

Wednesday was a travel day from Chadron State Park to Ponca State Park, at the opposite ends of the state of Nebraska. It was about six hours of driving time, which is longer than we normally like to drive in one day. And we crossed time zones, losing an hour. So we didn’t make long stops along the way.

As we left Chadron State Park, we dumped and filled our water tanks. Then we stopped in Chadron to pick up a few items at Walmart and get gas.

About an hour later, we stopped at Cottonwood Lake State Recreation Area. It is a fee area, but we had an annual Nebraska State Park Pass, so it didn’t cost us anything extra to stop. It is not very large, but it is peaceful. There were lots of birds and turtles and bugs. There were only about two or three other vehicles there. Camping is allowed there (for an additional fee) and at least one of the vehicles looked like they were staying there overnight. It looked like the main interest was fishing. Two people were standing in the lake in their waders, near the shore, fishing. A few others were out in a boat in the middle of the lake fishing.

We were there just to get out, stretch our legs, and use the vault toilets. We ate our lunch inside Red Tail (our Winnebago EKKO), so the bugs did not bother us. In less than an hour, we were back on the road again.

Another hour on US Route 20 brought us to the town of Valentine. We stopped in town to refill our gas tank, then stopped again, just outside of town, right after crossing the Niobrara River. There is a parking area for the Cowboy Trail there. The Cowboy Trail is a rails-to-trails long distance trail. When it is completed, it should stretch from Chadron all the way over to Norfolk for a total of 317 miles. Currently, there are only two sections of the trail open. The longer section is from Norfolk to Valentine, which is 187 miles. The second section is from Gordon to Rushville, about 15 miles long. This year, they are working on the section from Rushville to Chadron, adding another 25 miles to the trail. We noticed the trail near the highway along those sections earlier in the day.

At the Niobrara River, the Cowboy Trail crosses high overhead on an old, tall railroad trestle bridge. From the parking lot, we walked the trail to the bridge. It was a little over a mile, round trip, but well worth the walk. As we approached the bridge, we were concerned that we wouldn’t get a very good view of the bridge from being on top of it. But there were a couple of bump outs on the bridge which provided very lovely angles to see the trestles underneath.

Our last stop for the day was in the town of Atkinson. In our search for an ice cream shop, we stumbled across a place called RF Goeke Variety Store, which contained a soda fountain. The Google reviews talked about the place having good pies. It sounded like the perfect place for us.

The soda fountain is in the back of the store, looking like an old-fashioned soda fountain with a service counter lined with chairs. The friendly and chatty woman behind the counter served Keith his cherry pie with a scoop of vanilla. Ann opted for a sundae with vanilla ice cream, chocolate fudge, and cherry sauce, topped with whipped cream and a cherry. Everything tasted wonderful. However, being a chocoholic, Ann would have preferred a little more fudge.

From Atkinson, it was a little over two hours to reach Ponca State Park. We drove through some rain along the way, which made us even more ready to be done with our long drive. As we drove through the town of Ponca, the sign for Outlaw Pizza and High Noon Premium Hand Dipped Ice Cream caught our eyes. We’ll definitely be coming back into town for that during our stay!

Ponca State Park is a lovely park, situated on the wooded banks of the Missouri River. It is a large park, with lots of amenities. Our campground site was in the campground located at the far end of the park. As we were driving through the park, we spotted a wild turkey with some little chicks.

It was about 7 pm by the time we set up camp. Luckily, we had leftovers from dinner the night before, so we didn’t have to cook. After dinner, Ann went for a walk to close her Move and Exercise rings for the day. Getting an hour of exercise and burning 800 active calories is a challenge on long travel days.

It was a little buggy in our campground, but Ann didn’t feel like putting bug spray on. She just kept moving and swatting the bugs away from her face and she was fine. In fact, once she got out of our campground loop, she didn’t notice the bugs anymore, until she returned to our campground loop. Even when she walked around the other campground nearby, she didn’t notice any bugs. However, one of the campers in the other loop did have a campfire burning, which may have helped.

Just like at Chadron, we had electrical hookups, but we probably won’t need to use it. We generally only need to connect when we need to run the air conditioner. So far on our trip, the temperatures have been cool and pleasant, in the 60’s and 70’s. That’s quite a change from the 90 degree weather we left in the Denver area. However, it might start warming up on us soon.

Thursday, we got our e-bikes out. First, we rode over to the town of Ponca for lunch. From the entrance of Ponca State Park, there is a bike path that runs alongside the road all the way to town. It is about two miles from the park entrance to the edge of town, but it was a little over four miles from our camp site, since the Oak Bluffs Campground we were in is at the other end of the park.

Of course we went to Outlaw Pizza in town. The pizza was pretty tasty, but we ordered too much. We each got a 12 inch pizza and could only eat half of it, even though it had a thin, crispy crust. But somehow we managed to find room for their High Noon ice cream. We both had a scoop of chocolate peanut butter and a scoop of mint. The mint had all kinds of stuff in it, like chocolate mint cookie balls, Andes mints and a chocolate fudge swirl. Good stuff!

While we were at Outlaw Pizza, we heard people talking about a rodeo. We asked the staff about it. Yes, the annual Days of ’56 Rodeo was this coming weekend. ’56 refers to 1856, the year the town of Ponca was established. Ponca is the fourth oldest town in Nebraska. The Rodeo arena was on the edge of town. The parade on Saturday goes right down 3rd Street. OK, now we know what we’re doing on Saturday.

We chatted with the friendly staff at Outlaw Pizza for a little while. They recommended going to Bob’s Bar & Grill in the little town of Martinsburg, just nine miles down the road from Ponca. It is a very popular place, known for its large hamburgers and cheese balls. So we added that to our Saturday itinerary as well.

We strapped the box of leftover pizza to the rack on the back of Ann’s bike and rode over to the rodeo grounds to check where they were. On our way back, we explored the rest of Ponca State Park on our bikes.

We rode past the aquatic center, with a lovely pool, water slide and a climbing wall on the side of the pool. There was a large area of what looked like new cabins, more like houses actually. We didn’t go in any of them, but they looked really nice from the outside. There are also some older cabins.

We stopped at the Three State Overlook, which looks out over the Missouri River, over a small strip of South Dakota and out to Iowa.

Then we rode over to the shooting range. There was a Youth Archery range, but it was only open on Tuesdays from 1 to 3 pm. There was also a 3-D archery range with several stations. The 3-D range was for those over 16 years old, unless they are accompanied by an adult. However, there were no hours listed. There were no targets at the first station and the other stations were along a trail in the woods. So we weren’t sure if the 3-D range is always open for use, especially since there was a locked gate across the road leading to the range. We were able to easily walk or ride our bikes around the gate, but it wasn’t clear if they wanted people to do that. So Keith decided not to come back with his archery equipment to shoot.

By the time we returned to our camp site, we had covered 12.8 miles on our bikes, with an elevation gain of 997 feet. Yes, the roads through the state park are steep. We were very thankful that we were on e-bikes. We made good use of most of our pedal assist modes. Our bikes were fully charged when we left home and we had ridden them in Chadron State Park, but we did not recharge them there. After this ride in Ponca, our batteries were down to 50% and 60%, so we plugged them in. Back at camp, we didn’t notice many bugs like we did on the first evening, so we were able to sit, cook, eat, and relax outside the rest of the day.

Friday, we went for a hike. There are quite a few hiking trails in Ponca State Park, but none of them started at the Oak Bluff campground. So we walked the park road for about half a mile before picking up a trail. The road walk wasn’t too bad, since there was not a lot of traffic on the road, just campers starting to arrive for the weekend.

The AllTrails route we were following is called the Corps of Discovery, Overlook, Loess Hill, Bloodroot and Old Oak Loop. It was a combination of most of the trails in the park. We picked up the route from the spur road that leads off to some older cabins near Scout Hill.

There was no trail name at the trail head, which should have been our first clue. The trail was overgrown and not well maintained. We missed a turn because it was so overgrown and had to backtrack a little. This part of the trail was almost bushwhacking because it was so overgrown. We started being concerned about stepping on a snake. We’ll definitely be doing a tick check when we’re done with our hike.

Then we connected to the Corps of Discovery Trail. It was well maintained. OK, that’s better. The Corps of Discovery Trail is a loop that starts and ends at the Riverfront Campground. We took the lower half of the loop that follows along the bottom of a ravine which was very enjoyable.

From the Riverfront Campground, we headed on the road over to another trailhead to pick up the Overlook Trail. This climbed up and followed along the top of the bluff, with views every now and then out over the Missouri River. It led us to the Three State Overlook. It was rather anti-climactic, since we had already visited the overlook the day before on our bikes.

After following the trail a little further past the overlook, we crossed the road and continued on a trail down to the main park road where the bird blind was. The bird blind was a wooden wall with openings that looked out at some bird feeders. But there was no food in the bird feeders, so there were no birds to see. However, there were plenty of birds in the trees and bushes in the surrounding area.

The route followed a trail from the bird blind over to the spur road that led to the shooting range. Was this part of the Loess Hill Loop or the Old Oak Trail? We’re not sure as the park trail map was not very detailed. Near the restrooms across from the shooting range road, the route turned up another overgrown trail. It looked like it didn’t go very far before joining a major trail, so we decided to follow it until it joined the other trail and make a decision then if we want to turn around.

The trail we joined was well-maintained so we continued. We believe we were now on the Old Oak Trail. The trail wound around and up to an old oak tree, called Old Wolf Oak. The tree was toppled in a storm in 2024. The tree was estimated to be around 380 years old, one of the oldest burr oak trees in the state. Due to Bur Oak Blight and a fungus which has been infecting bur oaks in the area, probably enabled by several years of drought, Old Wolf is scheduled to be cut down.

Old Wolf was still there when we hiked by it. It even looked like it showed signs of life on a few branches and shoots. The tree has a lot of character and it is a shame that it needs to be cut down. However, it is better to try and let the other oak trees survive.

The Bloodroot Trail branches off from the Old Oak Trail. We decided to skip the Bloodroot and just take the Old Oak Trail out to the road and walk back to our campground. By the time we returned to camp, we had gone 5.3 miles with an elevation gain of 636 feet, which took us two hours and twenty minutes to complete. We counted it as hike number 8 of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2026.

Saturday, we drove over to Bob’s Bar & Grill in Martinsburg for lunch. Martinsburg is a smaller town than Ponca. We arrived around 11:30 am, but there were already quite a few cars lining the street in front of Bob’s Bar. However, there were still plenty of tables available when we walked inside. The place was pretty full by the time noon arrived.

We ordered one hamburger to share and one Half Order of fries to share. We were warned about the large portion sizes. The hamburger patty is about twice the size of the bun it sits on. And all of the sides are two pounds for a full order, one pound for a half order. The food was tasty, but nothing particularly special. The fries were crinkle cut and came out hot and fresh. The burger was fried on a flat top, and served with onions and pickles. You added your own condiments at your table, with a choice of ketchup, mustard, BBQ sauce, and A1 sauce.

Since they knew we were splitting the burger, they cut it in half for us. Ann put BBQ sauce on her half. The combination of the BBQ sauce, pickles and onions gave the burger a nice flavor. We wouldn’t recommend going way out of your way to go to Bob’s Bar, but it is a great choice if you’re passing through the area. The portions are large and the prices are very reasonable. But bring cash, as they don’t accept credit cards.

After lunch, we drove back to Ponca. We found a nice spot on 4th Street to park Red Tail along the curb that wasn’t directly in front of someone’s house. It turns out that trying to be that considerate was not necessary because the street was parked full by the end of the day.

To get some steps in, we walked over to Outlaw Pizza for ice cream. Along the way, we stopped at the Farmer’s Market going on in the Ponca Community Center. We were hoping for some fresh produce, but they were only selling crafts and baked goods. Perhaps it was too early in the season for fresh produce.

We had the same ice cream selections as we did on our first visit to Outlaw Pizza, but this time we sat outside to eat it. From there we walked over to B & S Trading Post Grocery to pick up a few items before heading back to Red Tail.

The parade was at 3 pm, so we hung out in Red Tail until then. The parade went along 3rd Street, from the school to the end of the street past Outlaw Pizza. We picked out a piece of curb to sit on along the street, across from the Adams House Museum.

The parade was a small town parade, with a small military color guard leading the way. Old fire engines, a horse drawn buggy, and tractors were the highlights. Then a lot of people on horseback rode by. It was probably all of the rodeo contestants and more. The kids lined the street and competed to pick up all the candy and treats being tossed to them from the parade participants. It was entertaining to watch.

After the parade, we headed over to the Rodeo Arena to see the Mutton Bustin which started at 4 pm. It was $20 per person to get into the arena, but that was for the whole day and we could come and go as we pleased. Mutton Bustin is where they give kids a helmet to wear, then put them on the back of a lamb and see how long they can hang on before they fall off. Each participant got a medal and a trophy went to the one who stayed on the longest.

Then we had some time to kill. The actual rodeo didn’t start until 7:30 pm. Ann went for a walk through town to close her exercise ring. Keith hung out at the grounds. We bought dinner from the concession stands at the grounds. It was interesting just to people watch, as the crowds started to arrive. There was a mechanical bull that you could pay to ride and a real bull that you could sit on and get your picture taken, for a price.

The Days of ’56 Ponca Rodeo is an event of the PRCA (Profession Rodeo Cowboys Association). Participants are from around the country, competing for cash prizes.

The events we saw were Bareback Riding, Saddle Bronc Riding, Tie-Down Roping, Team Roping, and Breakaway Roping. By that time, it was 9 pm. We’re not sure how long the rodeo lasted, but we decided to leave at this point, as we didn’t want to get back to the campground too late and disturb the other campers after dark.

Ponca turned out to be better than expected. In addition to the state park, we stumbled upon some local flavor in Ponca and Martinsburg. The parade and rodeo gave us a fantastic glimpse into what life may be like for the locals.

Check out our related video: Ponca State Park, Nebraska

(Ann)