Carhenge Nebraska.
Nebraska bugs
Oglala National Grasslands
Fort Robinson State Park, Nebraska
We are camped in a park on the site of the old Fort Robinson. Fort Robinson was the scene of many horrific events in the history of the country, repetitive demonstrations of man’s inhumanity to man. Crazy Horse was murdered here and several other massacres occurred. German prisoners of war were brought here because there could be no escape. K9 dogs were trained here for many years.
Today the Fort is a quiet, serene resort in a valley surrounded by lovely rose colored sandstone buttes. We are camped next to an official graveyard (I’m sure that there are other, innumerable, unmarked graves around us but our site is quiet and shady.
Nebraska is home to a treasure of fossils. Yesterday we saw two complete Columbian mammoths who died with tusks locked together in combat. Remarkable.
On our hike up into the buttes we saw three long horn sheep. My family will appreciate how long I have scanned the horizon for a long horn sheep. Now I just need to see a moose (and an antelope). We also saw naturalized sunflowers in great swaths along the hillsides.
When we came into Nebraska we were given a free fly swatter from the ‘host’ at the campground. It was a portent of our experience of Nebraska. Nebraska might well be called the grasshopper state but, if you don't like grasshoppers, the state is not lacking in flies, gnats, mosquitoes, and very large striped green beetles which dive bomb into our lantern in the evening (see photo).
I'm enjoying your trip. I think often of the two photos I have of Daddy and family on their car trip, when he was about 10. Him and George perched on a rock on a cliff, I think of it as in the Dakotas.
ReplyDeleteI was just out at my sit spot, sat for a minute and listened to the mosquito cloud buzz and then threw the kitten on a branch and climbed 10 or 15 ft up the beech tree, leaving the mosquitos behind. The kitten promptly fell off its branch, I guess beech doesn't offer much of a claw hold. I sat contentedly for 10 minutes or so, bug free.