We passed through the Sand Hill region of Nebraska. This is a vast sparsely populated area of rolling hills of guess what..plant covered Sand. For miles and miles no crops are grown. Occasionally a small herd of cattle will be seen grazing. As an indication of the vastness of this area, a search reveals that this section of Nebraska contains 530,000 head of cattle. However, you can drive mile after mile and see no sign of the existence of cattle. This section of Nebraska sits on top of the Ogallala Aquifer, and small shallow lakes appear sporadically. The rivers in this area run clear with sand bottoms. But the overwhelming feeling is that of desolation and vastness.
We passed near the Nebraska National Forest. This was a curios site. It was sparsely populated with trees, but would not be considered a "forest" in other parts of the country. After being home and having the luxury of high speed internet and a trusty browser, was I able to research this and find that it was an experiment, created in 1902 to determine if a forest could be created in the treeless plains. The result was a 20,000 acre human planted forest.
Scout performed flawlessly during this course of the trip. This is an amazing machine for long distance travel. We change drivers every 2 hours and only stop for fuel. With a cruising range of 400+ miles those stops are pretty infrequent.
Later, I will post figures for miles, mileage, and cost of the venture.
For now Scout is back and at rest.
The above photo is of the Nebraska National Forrest
No comments:
Post a Comment