Nebraska

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We started out bright and early, passing sorghum, dried up corn, sunflowers, and alfalfa. There are more trees along the rivers and the streambeds. We saw hay in big loaves, not round bales or rectangular bales. Later, we passed real, old-fashioned haystacks just like Monet's (?). Rich didn't think anyone could find a needle. We wonder why there are so many round rolls of hay that are obviously several years old and left to rot. What happened? We passed into Central Time Zone. We checked our cell phones and it took about ten minutes for them to change.
We passed Buffalo Bill's ranch in North Platte. We stopped in North Platte to get fuel, so we visited America's 20th Century Veteran's Memorial. It was very nice. Nice statues, nice bas relief sculptures,
and commemorative bricks. Back on the highway, we saw signs that made us realize we are going backwards on the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail. Remember the Oregon Trail computer game on floppy disk from way back when? You had to choose your supplies and use them along the way? We passed a Pony Express Station and a Sod Hut Museum.
There were lots of trains with hundreds of grain cars. There were also lots of trucks. Nancy took a tally for fifty miles and there was one truck per mile or one truck every minute!
We stopped at the Rowe Audubon Sanctuary and learned about the spring sandhill crane migration. HALF A MILLION CRANES stop in the Platte River Valley to feed for about six weeks every spring!!!!
Wouldn't that be a sight to see? What a sound that must be, too!!!
We saw milkweed pods dried up and the seeds were sailing to their new homes on their silken parachutes. At a rest area, we noticed that we have transitioned to poison ivy country now. We have also moved into the longrass prairie. Nancy has been looking for Osage oranges with no luck so far.
The dried corn is getting cut in the fields. We learned that most of the corn here is used for ethanol. Some is used for silage for feed and some is popcorn. They're also cutting something shorter, but we can't figure out what it is. It doesn't have grain on top and it's not in the corn family. There have been a few herds of longhorn cattle.
Our new campground is surrounded by cornfields. We took a long walk in the evening. It was cool and crisp and the dried corn smelled like fall. We went to sleep listening to the wind whispering secrets in the cornstalks.

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Photos

Corn on the prairie
It's so corny here, Rich feels right at home!

Comments

[anonymous]

hey I am so glad to know all is well. You guys are havin a blast and i am so happy for ya. It is great reading your adventures. Keep up the good work. Love youns

[Rubber Bums]

Quarter
A section is one mile square. A quarter is a quarter of that, so it could be a square that has a half mile on a side. A section is 640 acres, so a quarter is 160 acres. When we lived in Wasco, CA, the town was on a one square mile section. Our Guthe family farm in Nebraska was a section (I think) with the stipulation that one acre in the corner be set aside for a school. There is still a school on that acre and it is still being used (but it's a newer school than 1900).