Broken Bow
This morning we left Grand Island and headed northwest up Highway 2 in gusting winds through corn fields and farmland to Broken Bow, so named for a broken Indian bow found nearby. The winds are so strong in this area that trees are planted along the highways as windbreaks. The Broken Bow area came to be known as the Sod House Frontier, as when settlers first moved to the nearly treeless area, they built their homes, corals, pig pens, churches and school out of sod. Today the town is
small and modernized, relatively speaking. We stopped near the courthouse to snatch a cache…Nebraska checked off the list!
Sand Hills
Continuing along Highway 2 as geese flew in a V-shape form overhead and trains chugged by, we entered the sand hills region. The immense system of dunes that spans for at least 200 miles along the highway was created when sands of ancient sea were carried here by wind. The dunes are blanketed in flourishing grasses whose root systems have kept the dunes in place. If I were a cow living solely on grass, this is the place I’d want to be. The view was quite serene.
Nebraska National Forest
A 90,000 acre area, Nebraska National Forest, is situated on the south side of the highway within the dune region. Approximately one fourth of it comprises hand-planted trees. In the late 1800’s, Dr. Charles Bessey was convinced that the region was once forested and could be again. After years of building his case and gathering support, he wrote to President Roosevelt stating the government must take steps to provide for the production of timber for America’s future as eastern forests had been harvested or burned by 1902. Roosevelt established the Dismal River Forest Preserve, which is now the Nebraska National Forest.
We visited the Scott Fire Lookout, named for the forest’s first supervisor, Charles Scott. The tower is not only home to a nice view, but also to a cache! We walked along a hilltop trail watching for rattlesnakes and sticker burr bushes and admiring the wildflowers.
Ogallala
After visiting the forest, we continued west past miles of dunes and eventually turned south toward Ogallala. Just about the only sign of life were cows grazing on the hills or drinking from a water trough beneath a windmill.
In Ogallala, I decided to take in the nightly performance of the Crystal Palace Revue, named for a naughty 1875 dance hall. Eight high school students perform a gunfight outside the saloon prior to the beginning of an hour and a half performance of singing, dancing, and joke telling on stage in the bar. The show; cute, fun, goofy, comical and very interactive with the crowd, runs all summer until the kids go back to school and has been in production for over forty years.
I grabbed a bite to eat at the bar before the show where I met Jerry. He once lived in Bedford, Texas and now lives in Kansas. He works for a seismology company and is in Nebraska briefing the farmers about the procedures that will take place on their land in order to look for gas and oil in accordance with the leases they signed. Somehow we got to talking about the weather…oh because the bartender Stacy asked if it was going to rain…and he said a guy traveling through had to pull off at his hotel because his windshield got smashed by golf ball sized hail. I’m glad I missed that storm. I hope I stay out of them!
Ogallala is on Mountain Time. I read a road sign that informed me of this, but my phone never changed, so I ended up being an hour early to the show. Of course, I didn’t figure that out until I sat around a while which was annoying until I noticed the Cowboy game was on! I thought well this was a good $10 spent. If the show is boring, I’ll watch the game on mute. They turned the football off and the show was entertaining enough anyway! ETB