Larry and I returned to Grand Island, Nebraska, with Dorothy in early March. We had heard about the migration of the Sandhill Cranes and decided to check the event out ourselves. We witnessed the beginnings of this migration which means we were maybe seeing around 20,000 or more and that was interesting in itself but the total number of cranes passing through this area reaches 500,000!! It was noisy with what we saw and my pictures don't capture what we actually saw and of course heard - these birds are noisy when they return to the Platte for the night after a day feeding in the surrounding corn fields.
According to the brochure I have, for six weeks beginning in late February to early April more than 80% of the world's population of Sandhill Cranes pick Nebraska's Platte River as a resting point. They travel from southern wintering grounds to northern breeding grounds in Canada, Alaska and Siberia. They stop along the Platte to rest and gain body fat. The brochure says it is an amazing sight and one that can only be truly appreciated in person - so true.
Sunset on the Platte River was pretty too.
In addition to the thousands of cranes we saw, we saw hundreds of geese in the fields as well. I must be getting old...I'm not sure I would have appreciated this when I was younger?
We came upon this fellow when we were driving the back roads looking for the cranes feeding in the corn fields - the fence keeping him in didn't look sturdy enough.
And it snowed while we were back! and was then 70 degrees a couple days later - weather in Nebraska, I'd forgotten how erratic it can be.
We toured Monsanto in Gothenburg and learned a lot about corn seed hybridization (is that a word?!) We also did a road trip to the Samuel R. McKelvie National Forest by Halsey, NE. The majority of the trees in this forest were planted by hand beginning in 1902 as an experiment to produce trees in this previously unforested region. It is a combination of grasslands and pine forest "islands". It is billed as the "World's Largest Man-Made Forest" and in small print, in the Western Hemisphere. Hmmmm?
We then headed south to North Platte to visit The Golden Spike Tower! It is where east meets west on the Union Pacific line and where 10,000 cars are handled each day on 2,850 acres of land stretching out eight miles. It operates 24-hours a day, seven days a week where workers ensure the trains keep traveling down the tracks. Below is a photo of Larry and his sister Linda with just a portion of our view from the tower in the background.
We ended our long weekend trip with a stop at The Great Platte River Archway just east of Kearney. Oh my gosh, turned out to be more interesting than I expected.
Between 1843 and 1869, a half a million people rode and walked the trails to the West Coast. The Archway pays tribute to those pioneers, the birth of the railroad, the Lincoln Highway (America's first transcontinental road), and I-80 - the nation's first interstate.
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The Archway, which crosses I-80, was built beside the interstate and lifted into position. The roll out began on 8/16/99 at 10 p.m. and finished at 6 a.m. the following morning.
Again, The Archway does a great job of sequentially documenting The Pony Express, man's invasion and migration west and its affect on the native Indian population, the building of the railroad, the Lincoln Highway and its contribution to the development of motels and continued advancements to current times.
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And then it was time to return to our warm Arizona winter weather and see the progress on our bedroom/bathroom remodel. The 4-6 week project will turn out to be a 9 week project.
On the health front, I had my three month scan and it shows the drug continues to work - yay!
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