Desert sea of grass

the Sand Hills of Nebraska

the Sand Hills of Nebraska

coal train running through the Sand Hills

"...a great desert of moving sand, where there is neither soil, timber or rock." -Scotsman James MacKay, 1795

"... this area may in time become as famous as the deserts of Africa." -Zebulon Pike, 1815

A forest from scratch

Nebraska National Forest

One of many strange experiments carried out across the Plains of North America can be found near Halsey, Nebraska, where in 1902 Charles Bessie tried to create a forest on 20,000 acres of the Sand Hills as a national timber reserve.

The National Forest operates a tree nursery there, supplying millions of seedlings a year, but much of the older, planted forest struggles.

Sand Hills

Antioch, Nebraska (ghost town)

Sand Hills

Sand Hills

At around 23,000 square miles, the Sand Hills are a unique region within the Great Plains. Almost exclusively sand dunes covered with grass, around 85% of it has never been plowed. Occasionally, blowouts occur in which the grass cover rips open by wind or truck tires, and the sand gets exposed. In order to stop a blowout from spreading, locals might throw tires in or drive an old car into one which somehow manages to stabilize the gash.

Lots of little ponds sit in the pits between the dunes, making the area good for livestock grazing but not much else, especially road building. So, one of the few state highways to cross this bizarre landscape follows the Burlington Northern Santa Fe line. We passed a few ghost towns on our way through this fascinatingly beautiful corridor.

Great Plains scavenger hunt item #6: Sand Hills

The Sand Hills is a region of mixed-grass prairie on grass-stabilized sand dunes in north-central Nebraska, covering just over one quarter of the state. Dunes in the Sand Hills may exceed 330 ft (100 m) in height.

The Broken Bow style

Custer Federal Savings & Loan

Broken Bow Municipal Building

downtown Broken Bow

The aesthetic style of the plains first appeared to us in Broken Bow. It must have been a progressive looking town in the 1940's and 50's, and a lot of the design elements that really dressed it up back then have been well preserved. The fonts and bright colors on signs all over town mixed Modernism with a sense of frontier lyricism, fitting for a town with such a poetic name.

Broken Bow, Nebraska

cloud waves over the Sand Hills

the Gateway Motel, Broken Bow, Nebraska

Broken Bow, Nebraska

The Tumbleweed, Broken Bow, Nebraska

Broken Bow lies in the center of Nebraska and at the eastern edge of the Sand Hills. We were excited to finally see the Sand Hills after having read a bit about them, but for the warm dry summer evening we spent in Broken Bow, we discovered a dusty, windswept and very attractive little town far from the interstate. For the first time on our trip we felt like we were in the West.

We had breakfast the next morning at the Tumbleweed, where I heard the waitress ask a man at a nearby table if he was Canadian. Looking confused he said, "Yeah, how did you know?" She said, "I could tell because you ordered a tomato with your breakfast, and all the truck drivers coming down from Canada ask for tomatoes."

Several hours along the Lincoln Highway

The Lincoln Highway, eastern Nebraska

a bar on the Lincoln Highway

corn along the Lincoln Highway

rail depot on the Lincoln Highway

Dedicated in 1913, the Lincoln Highway was the first road across the country going from New York to San Francisco. We followed it for 150 miles west into Nebraska. This stretch follows the wide, muggy river bottom of the Platte River. Tiny farm communities pop up about every five to ten miles, and every one of them has a tornado siren and a rail depot where (I assume) the local farmers store their harvested corn before it's loaded onto trains.

Along the Platte River

The Platte River in eastern Nebraska

railroad along the Lincoln Highway and Platte River

The Lincoln Highway, following the Platte River

Leaving Omaha, our route followed the Platte River west into Nebraska. One of the Plains' major rivers, it guided European settlement westward across the continent starting with fur traders and explorers, continuing with the main migration trails, the first road across the country and eventually, the interstate highway system. While the interstate was routed further from the river, trains, tiny farm towns and local highways still keep the Platte at arm's length.

Great Plains scavenger hunt item #5: the Platte River

The Platte River is a river in the Western United States, approximately 310 mi (500 km) long. It is a tributary of the Missouri River, which in turn is a tributary of the Mississippi River. The Platte is one of the most significant river systems in the watershed of the Missouri, draining a large portion of the central Great Plains in Nebraska and the eastern Rocky Mountains in Colorado and Wyoming. The river played an important role in the westward expansion of the United States, providing the route for several major westward trails, including the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail.

-Wikipedia

Through Omaha

Old downtown Omaha, Nebraska

Without the time to get an advanced degree in the Great Plains, we had to prioritize a few aspects of the region above the rest. This meant overlooking its cities scattered distantly, mostly around its edges. On our way through Omaha we stopped for a couple hours to pick up tourist information and maps, and to at least get a quick impression of the city.

The newer steel and glass office buildings make it look like a relatively thriving, healthy modern place. We walked around the Old Market area where a lot of the old brick warehouses have been turned into flower shops, beauty parlors, bars and gift shops. The buildings were neat, but the area wreaked of having been designated a revitalized cultural area and felt separated from what really gives Omaha its purpose. At least we got to see the vast rail yards and cattle yards on our way out of town to reinforce my expectation of what made Omaha.

stormy weather

Our little Mazda Protege5 has been perfect for trips like this. It's big enough to bring our camping gear, and just big enough for us to sleep in comfortably should we drive too late to set up the tent. After the "Trucker's Jamboree" outside Davenport, we drove another 60 miles before pulling off the highway to sleep. Some pretty severe thunderstorms woke us up the next morning, and kept coming at us as we continued to make our way toward Nebraska.

Truck stop love

The world's largest truckstop, Iowa 80, has parking for 800 trucks. This means there's room for fairs of the kind we happened upon, meaning we could check off another item on our Great Plains scavenger hunt. While local fairs are held everywhere across the country, I think their importance, and therefore dynamism, is magnified in the less populated areas like the plains, where there tend to be fewer large scale social events during the year.

Scavenger hunt, item four:

Fair: 1. an exhibition, usually competitive, of farm products, livestock, etc., often combined in the U.S. with entertainment and heldannually by a county or state.

2. a periodic gathering of buyers and sellers in an appointed place.

3. an exposition in which different exhibitors participate, sometimes with the purpose of buying or selling

Fans

Aaron Tippin fans

Aaron Tippin fans

We turned into Iowa 80 truck stop for a bite to eat and instead got to see a "Trucker's Jamboree". This meant, for us, a couple hours of wandering through a fair complete with hundreds of tractor-trailers, food tents, balloons, fireworks, games, and midwesterners of all sizes. A growing crowd in one corner of the fair drew us in, where we found out the country music star Aaron Tippin was signing autographs. We'd arrived in a new land.

Westward into Iowa

Interstate 80, northern Illinois

Continuing westbound on Interstate 80 through northern Illinois, we crossed over the Mississippi River into Iowa at dusk. We counted on driving well into the night in order to make Nebraska fairly early the next day. The "World's Largest Truck Stop" drew us off the highway for a quick bite to eat, but there was a Truckers Jamboree going on, giving us a chance to see a large number of Iowans and find out whether they live up to their giant corn-fed stereotypes...

Into tornado country

I grew up hearing tornado sirens periodically being tested and practicing tornado drills in school and summer camp. Our arrival in tornado country last summer announced itself by this familiar siren on our way across northern Illinois...

Great Plains scavenger hunt item number three: tornado siren

A civil defense siren (also referred to as an air raid siren, tornado siren, tsunami siren, or other outdoor warning siren) is a mechanical or electronic device for generating sound to provide warning of approaching danger and sometimes to indicate when the danger has passed. Initially designed to warn of air raids in World War II, they were adapted to warn of nuclear attack and of natural phenomena such as tornadoes. In the United States, sirens are usually used to warn of impending natural disasters, as well as threats of military attacks, which in the United States are rare. Throughout the Great Plains, Midwest, and South, they are used to notify the public of a tornado warning or flash flood.

Prairie pothole

Great Plains scavenger hunt item number two: prairie pothole

Prairie potholes are depressional wetlands (primarily freshwater marshes) found most often in the Upper Midwest, especially North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. This formerly glaciated landscape is pockmarked with an immense number of potholes, which fill with snowmelt and rain in the spring. Some prairie pothole marshes are temporary, while others may be essentially permanent. Here a pattern of rough concentric circles develops. Submerged and floating aquatic plants take over the deeper water in the middle of the pothole while bulrushes and cattails grow closer to shore. Wet, sedgy marshes lie next to the upland.

The Upper Midwest, because of its numerous shallow lakes and marshes, rich soils, and warm summers, is described as being one of the most important wetland regions in the world. The area is home to more than 50 percent of North American migratory waterfowl, with many species dependent on the potholes for breeding and feeding.

-U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Illinois tallgrass

The parking lot was empty when we pulled into Goose Lake Prairie State Natural Area in northern Illinois late in the afternoon. As soon as we entered the park headquarters, the ranger jumped at his opportunity for live conversation. He asked what we'd like to know about the prairie, and when we responded with question marks on our faces he said "Meet me out by the flagpole". The flagpole was surrounded by many examples of native flowers, where he gave us a guided tour of each. We followed his introduction with a hike through the surprisingly varied grasses, some over 8 feet tall. This was the first of many times on our trip where we learned that despite appearances, the prairie ecosystem is one of the most diverse in the world.

For our trip across the Great Plains, Jen and I listed as many "things" as we could think of that were associated with this region. Our list served as sort of a scavenger hunt and included both physical and cultural features. As I try to recall them in the next batch of blog posts about our trip, I'll list each item we saw or experienced in the form of a brief dictionary entry. Thus, the first item on our hunt was the tallgrass prairie.

The tallgrass prairie is an ecosystem native to central North America, with fire as its primary periodic disturbance. In the past, tallgrass prairies covered a large portion of the American Midwest, just east of the Great Plains, and portions of the Canadian Prairies. They flourished in areas with rich loess soils and moderate rainfall of around 30 to 35 inches (760 to 890 mm) per year.

-Wikipedia

Illinois prairie

Goose Lake Prairie State Natural Area

One of the last large untouched patches of prairie left in Illinois is preserved as a state park about 50 miles southwest of Chicago. Goose Lake Prairie State Natural Area contains a patchwork of old-growth tallgrass prairie (it was always too poorly drained to be useful to farmers or other development). As a result it's a refuge for rare prairie plants, moths, butterflies and other insects, and a great place for birding.

Situated in the wide Illinois River bottomland and surrounded mostly by quiet, muggy farmland, we are reminded of our proximity to Chicago by the huge network of power lines emanating from a nuclear power plant looming on the horizon.

Firmly into a lower gear; time to travel on...

Empire Beach, Lake Michigan

Michigan's biting flies, buzzing lawn mowers, sand in toes, ice cream, fireworks, tourists, river-soaked shoes... this is how we knew our summer had begun. After down-shifting in Michigan for a week, it was time to get back on the highway again in order to see the Great Plains we'd set out to.

Our onward travel was delayed a day when Jenifer's knee buckled over the wrong way bringing us reluctantly to the emergency room. This meant we had find room in the car for crutches and adjust some of our later plans for hiking and backpacking, but with a couple couch pillows to elevate her leg on the long ride ahead, we drove down the eastern shore of Lake Michigan for Illinois and points west.

Michelle, Jenifer, Jeff (mother, daughter, father) looking out over Empire, the dunes, the lake and all that

Thanks Jeff, Michelle, Hayley and everybody up there for a great time!

Under the Milky Way

The skies in northern Michigan are so far from city lights that even staring into a backyard fire for a couple of hours does not erase the brilliant Milky Way over head. One of my favorite things about traveling up there is the way our galaxy reveals itself beyond the usual smudge across the sky. Looking sideways into our galaxy's disc, there appears to be wisps of cotton floating above and below the whirling plane. The night we built this fire was chilly, so to boost the fire's effectiveness we opened the bottle of whiskey we'd bought at the duty free shop on our way through Canada.

Slow paddle on the Crystal River

The Crystal River empties Glen Lake into Lake Michigan just over a mile away. But, because of the slow, meandering course the river takes, there are about 15 miles of paddling via canoe or kayak to get to the village of Glen Arbor on Lake Michigan. A map of the river looks like the chart a seismograph makes in an earthquake, but the land surrounding the river is mostly flat, sandy cedar swamp that occasionally opens up for lush reed fields -apparently good habitat for huge snappers and strange bitterns.

The stream itself is very shallow and clear with a sandy bottom. This apparently allows one's companions to feel brave about smacking water toward fellow paddlers, and getting faces full of water in return. Right, Jen?