Nebraska like Antarctica

Okay, there are times when Nebraska gets really cold, but not that cold. No, it’s not temperature I have in mind: don’t you think that the outline of these lichens is like that of Antarctica? Following in the footsteps of Amundsen, I strode to the top of Scott’s Bluff National Monument on May 28th and metaphorically planted my photographic flag there.

If you’d like a much closer look at a portion of these lichens, click to expand this excerpt:

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

A striking snake, or one that might become so

At the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in Nebraska on May 29th Eve heard a sound and then saw, menacingly close, a rattlesnake at the edge of the path we were walking on. After taking pictures of it, including this one that clearly shows the upraised rattle, I phoned the visitor center and had the staff warn people who were headed out along the same path.

From what I can tell after reading Venomous Snakes and Snakebite in Nebraska, this appears to have been a prairie rattlesnake, Crotalus viridis.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Rainbows don’t get named

Waterfalls get named. Mountains get named. Rivers get named. Deserts get named. Even people get named. Rainbows, those ephemeral creatures, get no names. Here a necessarily nameless rainbow I saw near 5 in the afternoon on May 28th after we came down from the windy top of Scott’s Bluff National Monument in western Nebraska. Whether the grasses are native, I don’t know, but the rainbow surely was.

It seems like two or even three rainbows banded together here, and I don’t know how to account for that. In checking my archives, I can confirm that multiple rainbows show up in all of the eleven pictures I took.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Two landmarks in quick succession

 

After spending a couple of afternoon hours at Chimney Rock, Nebraska, on May 28th, we drove the short distance west to Scottsbluff and even before checking in at our hotel went to check out Scott’s Bluff National Monument* to make good use of the afternoon light. We worked our way up the winding road to the top of the bluff, parked, and walked around. After a while the wind got so strong that at one point it almost blew me over (but not over the cliff).

Facing in the opposite direction from the picture above, I photographed a geological formation that reminds me of the ruins of a Mayan temple:

Here’s Scott’s Bluff visitor information.

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* The United States Board on Geographic Names seems bent on throwing away apostrophes in geographic names. We’ll show our displeasure and, like Scott’s Bluff itself, rise above that.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Chimney Rock

On May 28th we drove through intermittent rain as we wended our way west toward Chimney Rock National Historic Site in Nebraska. The showers had stopped by the time we reached that pioneer landmark on the old Oregon (and Mormon and California) Trail but you can see that rain was still coming down in the distance farther to the west. If you’d like to visit this place, whether by wagon train or car, here’s more information.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman