On to South Dakota

Fri, Sept 1 - Sat, Sept 2...

September—how can be it Sept? (In real life, routines change w/ the seasons – not so on the road.) Longer drive today — 4+ hours, and I struggled to stay awake through some of those. Most of Nebraska is pretty flat, but we did see some rolling hills and pasture land as we drove. Free range cattle - some widely scattered, others in close community. (And we've seen one feed lot herd here in SD, but it was pretty small.)  Here are a couple parting shots from Nebraska...

Plenty of pasture... plenty of cattle.
(different locations)

Big Bend Dam

Saturday. Our campground for the weekend is on the Missouri River (3rd time), just below Big Bend Dam. (If Big Bend sounds familiar, it's probably b/c there's also a Big Bend Nat'l Park in Texas.) This dam is one of 4 in South Dakota creating big reservoir lakes with campgrounds and marine recreation. Lots of boats here!! This morning I walked along a good bit of the "shoreline" (campground boundary).

Looking back toward boat launch, campsites and dam (the white castle).

Gulls at rest...

...and on the go.

If you’re not on the water, there’s really not a ton of stuff to do around here, so we drove into Chamberlain to pick up some groceries and check out the Lakota Museum & Culture Center. (As the crow flies, Chamberlain’s probably about 10 miles away; following highways it’s more like 30.) The museum was very well done. A timeline of Lakota history snaked around the entire exhibit, the artifacts were excellent (it’s amazing what you can make when you utilize 100% of a buffalo), and the explanations of family life and child-rearing reminded me of the importance of positive reinforcement and a strong sense of community. I was so absorbed I forgot to take pictures.😞  Driving home we stopped above the river just outside Chamberlain for some landscape shots.

Chamberlain Bridge upper right. Main highway to our left w/ fields on the other side.
(There are a handful of  homes & a golf course along this side of the highway.)

BlogThoughts... I really appreciated the time we spent in Nebraska. Living in the Seattle 'burbs, I forget how vastly different other parts of the country are. Even though I kinda got tired of the corn/soybean views, I enjoyed the reminder of what "heartland" means. (The whole government subsidies issue upsets me, but I'm also quite sure I don't fully understand it yet, so I'm not gonna make an ignorant comment.) Washington has a fair amount of farmland, but we still rank 24th in population density. Nebraska ranks 43 (South Dakota 46). Town signs show populations of 391 and 97. It's a different world. (And, I wondered today, does/can Amazon guarantee 2-day delivery to all these tiny communities?)

I've also thought a lot of cattle these last few days. There's a huge beef processing plant (JBS) in Grand Island - 5400 head/day capacity. We drove by it a couple times. The parking lot is the size of a 3 football fields. We've seen hundreds of cattle in fields. We also see cattle in trucks outside JBS. We see prize steers at the fair. I think about breeding enough cattle to keep the JBS plant busy. I see a poster showing just 3 oz of lean beef provides the same amount of protein as 3C of quinoa. I like steak. I don't want to think about beef any more. 

Parting shots to ponder...

Rising Sun