Driving Nebraska
March 28, 2015
Sunrise near Kearney, Nebraska
Nebraska is flat! I was struck by the wide open landscape and the dearth of trees. You could understand why early settlers resorted to building sod houses, for wood is scarce. When we saw trees, often cottonwoods, it signaled a river or natural water source.
Nebraska landscape along I-80
The Great Platte River Road
Sun halo (sun dog) we saw at a rest stop along I-80
Huge fields with nary a farmhouse in sight
Irrigation machinery
A whimsical Nebraska practice — capping fence posts with old, discarded boots
Power lines across the Nebraska landscape, near sunrise
Nearing sunrise, Nebraska
When we left Kearney, we drove north and west through the sandhills of Nebraska. This is the mid-grass prairie, but the grass grows in clumps rather than in waving expanses, on undulating low hills. It is range country. I was surprised to see windmills dotting the range every couple of miles. I was also surprised at the hundreds of ponds and rainwater basins dotting the land, many with sapphire blue water.
Sandhills (with pronghorn)
Horse with cottonwoods
The ubiquitous windmill
Sandhill region of Nebraska
I had not seen such natural blue water since Crater Lake.
Train tracks (We saw so many trains carrying coal — I counted 120 coal cars on one train.)
Rosemary's Blog 
March 28, 2015 at 6:10 am
That’s my country, and it always makes me homesick to see it. Of course Iowa’s landscape is more corn than wheat, but still… If you’d turned east on I-80, eventually you would have come to the little Iowa town where I used to sit on the front steps and listen to the traffic on the newly-opened interstate, and dream of going somewhere.
March 30, 2015 at 8:16 am
I always think of Minnesota and Iowa as Midwest, but parts can be considered Great Plains as well. My childhood landscape was definitely small farms, gently rolling hills and not the huge expansive ranches of the Great Plains.
March 30, 2015 at 1:32 pm
that electric blue water is amazing