Across Covid America - Tour of National Parks 2020 - Day 6

Day 6

12124 mileage

6:50 A.M.

4083 steps

Early start for Day Six. We'd be traversing Nebraska and on into South Dakota today with a few stops along the way for the History Nerd. 

Today? Today we are jumping near the starts of the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails. Actually following the same trail that pioneering families completed in the mid Nineteenth Century. As I flew along at a speed, which to those early travelers would have seemed like us standing on the ground watching a jet fly overhead today, I pictured teams of 20 covered wagons with 200 people walking alongside. Yep, they had to walk because the wagon was usually for all the food and supplies for the six month trip. Can you imagine?

There's just something completely different about teaching students about an arduous journey and actually getting out there and witnessing the desolation and hard lands they would have had to travel. It changed my understanding of what they went through. Not just them, it made me respect those Native American tribes that fought to make this inhospitable terrain their homes. 

We spotted Chimney Rock about 8 miles away. This was easily done on the flat stretches of brown land in front of us. Chimney Rock was one of the many landmarks spread across the 2,000 miles that folks headed west would be on the lookout for to pass the time. Diaries and records of their travel describe seeing a shape appear on the horizon that over a number of days would grow to the whopping 300 feet above the North Platte River Plateau, like a finger pointed at the sky. 

You can hike out to the base of the geological formation and also see the small cemetery where those that passed on the trip were buried. Look closely at the picture below to see one of the inscribed headstones. 

                       

We moved onto Scott's Bluff, another stop on the trails. This one a towering straight edged bluff rising from the plateau below. Here begins where we interact with the 'Badlands' of the west. There was a visitor's center at the base of the bluff and you could drive up the road to get a spectacular view of the surrounding lands. 

Just watch out for rattlesnakes. Uh-huh. You heard me correct. RATTLESNALES!

Our last sight-seeing stop for the day was for the Agate Fossil Beds located in a remote area of the Nebraska Panhandle. It touts amazing remnants from the Miocene Epoch (5 to 23 million years ago) when the landscape of the Great Plains started to dry out. Mammals living in the area, such as the beardog and the small antelope-like stenomylus, were adapted to this habitat. There was to be an awesome diorama located inside the visitor's center. Which, you guessed it, was completely closed to the public. 

It was exactly at 3:10 P.M. that I spotted my first buffalo on the Crazy Horse Highway outside Crawford, Nebraska. Can you hear my nerdy glee?