Cuzn Eddyz Campground is located in Merna, Nebraska, a small 300-400 person town a few miles northwest of Broken Bow, Nebraska. Distinguished by its collection of windmills, the campground sits on two acres of grassy land with several trees spread throughout. There are 17 RV sites with full hookups, as well as an abundance of space for tents. Additionally, there is a gender-specific bath and shower house, laundry facilities, and the main office with a boutique retail gift shop. Guests can also utilize the relatively large grass field, the covered pavilion, the playground, and the space in between the windmills. Nearby the campground is the city of Broken Bow with several attractions and dining options. There is also Nebraska National Forest or the Calamus Reservoir State Recreation Area that are nearby for more recreational activities.
Cuzn Eddyz Campground is situated on two acres of land near the edge of the small town of Merna, Nebraska. It is only 500 feet from the junction of Highway 92 and Highway 2. The RV park itself hosts a total of 17 RV sites and an extensive area for tent sites. Though varying between pull-through and back-in, each of the plots offer full hookups, which include 30/50 amp electrical, water, sewage, an outlet, and internet. The owners and hosts of the property, Dave and Annette Downey, have also made sure to include a private picnic table and firepit at each unit, situated on a small plot of grass. Firewood is available at a cost of five dollars for a five-gallon bucket’s worth, complete with homemade fire starter woodchips. Perhaps the most defining aspect of Cuzn Eddyz Campground is the dozens of windmills that surround the back of the property—in between it and the farm fields next door. Though there are no official tent sites, patrons of the campground are able to pitch their tents almost anywhere among the windmills, or even hang up a hammock in between them.
The main office is located on the east side of the property, along with the bathhouse and shower facilities. The main office has a small retail gift shop where guests can purchase the firewood available, as well as ice, memorabilia such as a magnetic can koozie, tickets for the Sturgis Shuttle, and something called the Truckers Package. Additionally, the main office is where guests can find and ask the owners any questions and receive assistance. The Bathhouse and shower facilities are separated by gender and have handicap, ADA-accessible stalls. The dumpsters are located near these buildings so that they are still central but not near the accommodations. There is also a laundry facility with washers and dryers available that guests of the campground can utilize during their stay.
The property itself is mostly covered in grass, except for the gravel RV road, and has various features guests can use. Chief among these is a relatively large grass field on which guests can participate in all manner of activities such as playing with their pets, baseball, volleyball, horseshoes, miniature golf, and kickball. This field is separated from the RV sites by a water channel connected to the property’s well, something guests are free to use at their leisure. Next to the grass field is a playground with slides and swings that kids often play on, and a covered pavilion area. The covered pavilion has seating and a large firepit, intended for groups staying at Cuzn Eddyz Campground to use for meals and gatherings. Should guests need extra space for parking beyond just their own site, Dave and Annette have been known to provide additional spaces either elsewhere on the property, or on their own property next door.
Because the town of Merna is fairly small, many of the patrons that come and stay at Cuzn Eddyz Campground are passing through as they travel on Highway 2 or Highway 92. Annette remarks that some are going from the East Coast to the West Coast and vice versa, or heading to South Dakota, Kansas, and any other state nearby them. Right next door to the RV park, separated by a privacy fence, is a Sinclair Gas Station where guests can fill up their vehicles as they continue to travel. There are also several restaurants in Broken Bow that Annette recommends guests go and eat at, such as the Kinkaider Brewing Company, the Bonfire Grill and Pub, and the Tumbleweed Cafe. Kinkaider Brewing Company is one of three similar breweries in Nebraska, whose parent company was founded in 2014. It offers various craft beers made from locally sourced ingredients and tours of its brewery. Bonfire Grill and Pub is located in Broken Bow City Square in the Arrow Mini Mall and is another place guests can get alcoholic beverages as well as various grill-style dishes, and the Tumbleweed Cafe has an extensive breakfast menu in addition to various lunch and dinner options.
Broken Bow has a couple of attractions guests of Cuzn Eddyz Campground have been known to visit in the past, including the Broken Bow Museum, and the Broken Bow Swimming Pool. Beyond this, there are some sod house museums in the area. The Nebraska National Forest is nearby as well and is a popular attraction for ATVing, hiking, camping, mountain biking, and more. Near the Calamus Reservoir at Calamus Outfitters, people can go kayaking, tubing, or tanking down the river on a two or four-hour, all-inclusive river trip. Many tourists and travelers are also brought through or to the area due to the baseball culture that is prevalent in Nebraska. A local baseball tournament is what caused the campground to open as early as it did in the first place. People might also be traveling through to catch a football game at the Univerity of Nebraska in Lincoln. Dave, Annette, and the rest of the Downeys are proud Cornhuskers—a term given to people who support the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team.
Dave and Annette, the owners of Cuzn Eddyz Campground want their guests to feel welcome and relaxed as they stay at their property. They have a goal to greet everyone when they come in, show them all the campground amenities, and help them get set up. They also want to be able to accommodate everybody’s needs. To accomplish this they check up on guests as they are walking around the park, and strive to be available should guests need any assistance. They are a "small family-owned deal," according to Annette, and live on-site, which further allows them to accommodate people’s needs. One guest explained their experience getting assistance from the Downey’s, saying “The owners are super friendly and accommodating. We set up a tent and hammock under the windmills. We didn't have a fire ring at the spot we chose. So I asked the owners if we could get one and within 5 min they brought one to use. They have huge bundles of wood for $5. Homemade wood chips with a special ingredient the owner uses to help light the fire is also included.”
Another aspect of the campground that guests tend to mention is the quality of the bathhouse facilities and the other amenities, as well as the cleanliness of the park in general. One guest, in particular, who came in the wintertime, mentioned in a review that Cuzn Eddyz Campground was a “cute facility that they had thoughtfully decorated with Christmas lights. The shower facility was clean and well-lit. Electric service was stable and there was good water pressure at the campsite.” Another visitor said it was a “Beautiful place with a very clean and well-maintained bath and shower house. The owners are friendly and pleasant.”
As they are relatively new to the campground business—having opened Cuzn Eddyz Campground in July of 2020—Dave and Annette hope to reach more customers and learn whatever they can to make their property more accommodating. Dave, in particular, has a goal to be a “stopover” for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, a group of motorcyclists that bike through Merna from Sturgis, South Dakota, during their annual motorcycle rally. Annette talks about how her favorite part of being a proprietor of a campground is meeting the people, finding that almost all of her guests are friendly and personable. The Downey’s also make sure to take all recommendations and input from their guests so that they can improve. For instance, one guest mentioned that, unlike many other RV parks, the laundry facilities at Cuzn Eddyz is not a coin-operated machine, but she would still like to pay to give back to the campground. So Annette took this guest’s recommendation and put a tip jar in the laundry room.
Dave and Annette also hope to make the campground very unique and aesthetically pleasing. This is showcased by means of unique aspects such as the abundance of windmills they have situated surrounding the property. Already, they have been broadcasted on TV multiple times due to their collection of windmills. Annette says even their name is meant to be unique, and that one guest chose to stay there solely because they liked the title of Cuzn Eddyz Campground. The Downey’s try to keep up on social media as well, especially on Facebook and Google. Through all these efforts they hope to eventually always have people stopping in to stay the night, increase their number of returning customers, and eventually be able to stay busy year-round.
Another way Dave and Annette have tried to become more well-known and cater to their guests is through events. Their desire is that visitors will want to host gatherings such as family reunions on their property, being able to utilize the RV sites, the covered pavilion, the grass field, and the picnic area. Cuzn Eddyz Campground has also started hosting its own events, such as launching fireworks on the fourth of July and decorating for the different seasons, even getting some guests to decorate with them. Of course, they always want to be able to accommodate people coming in for Junk Jaunts, baseball tournaments, rallies, and those just passing through.
Cuzn Eddyz Campground has several policies in place to better accommodate their guests and to help maintain the property. Dogs are allowed at the campground but must be cleaned up afterward and leashed at all times. Additionally, they must not be left unattended. Quiet time at the park starts at 10 PM and goes until 7 AM. Smoking is allowed as long as people are considerate of their neighbors and clean up their cigarette buds. And only burnable items can be burned in the firepits. The demographic of the guests, according to Annette, consists primarily of middle-aged people ages thirty to sixty. However, they have their fair share of single travelers and families.
Cuzn Eddyz Campground has been open for business for just over a year. The owners of the RV Park are Dave and Annette Downey, a local couple from Merna, Nebraska. They own a business in addition to their campground called Downey Well—a company that drills and repairs wells for livestock farms and other businesses, as well as domestic places. After running Downey Well for a while and the subsequent departure of their children from the home, they decided they wanted to try and open a campground. To do this, they were able to purchase the land right next door to them which had been put up for sale by an older gentleman. At the time Dave and Annette bought it, it consisted primarily of trees and a couple of residential homes. They removed many of the trees and structured the park around the remaining ones, as well as making other significant changes such as planting all the grass and building the RV sites themselves. They also drilled the well featured on the property, something guests are free to use to pump water from.
In July of 2020, as they were still in the middle of construction, though near the tail of it, they got a call from some people who had tried to stay at another RV park in one of the towns nearby. The other RV park had been completely booked out due to a baseball tournament and so these people were wondering if Dave and Annette were ready for the extra visitors that couldn’t be accommodated elsewhere. The Downeys accepted the impromptu reservation, despite the fact that they hadn’t yet completed the campground. Because of these strange circumstances regarding their opening for customers, Annette considers the summer of 2021 to be the Cuzn Eddyz Campground’s first official season of operation.
In regards to the future of the campground, Annette and Dave have plans to continue acquiring and putting windmills up around the property. They get these as they run their other business and have found it to be one of the most defining aspects of their campground, seeing as how the windmills on their property have been featured on television two times. Annette also has plans to convert an old grain silo into a gazebo, something that would both fit the aesthetic of the park, and be another feature guests could utilize. Due to demand for more permanent seasonal residents, they might also expand more onto their original property. These added sites would be similar to the existing ones that are currently at Cuzn Eddyz Campground, while at the same time provide a little more privacy and space so that those patrons who wish to stay for longer periods of time wouldn’t have to be amongst the constant flow of the other guests.
399 W. Old Hwy 2
Merna, Nebraska 68856
United States
Small, Family-Owned
Dave & Annette Downey
