On the Outlaw Trail across northern Nebraska

Thursday, June 29, 2017; from Mulberry Bend on the Missouri to 
McKelvie National Forest, near Valentine, Nebraska

Late in the night I awakened, and noticed the fireflies were now at rest in the long grasses, and quietly glowing, as they do, after a long night of firefly revelry.  I had forgotten that about fireflies, not having seen them for so many years.  Returning to sleep, I awoke with the dawn, just in time to photograph the rising Sun, through the trees across the waters of the Mighty Mo.  Two rabbits came out, nibbling grasses while I was eating my breakfast, and as I watched them a third tinier one gingerly joined the breakfast club.  The mid morning was spent squaring away the truck, finding places to tuck equipment into and making the travelling arrangements more efficient.  Later I watched the Martins on insect patrol over the river, and identified a Catbird, and Eastern Kingbirds … I had not seen a Catbird since I was a lad in northern Wisconsin. 

Sunrise on the Missouri at Mulberry Bend, Nebraska.

Three miles south I picked up State Hwy 12 going west, and followed it all day to Valentine, winding through the Nebraska hills within 10 miles of the South Dakota border to the north.  The journey began as yesterday, all green and rural, but within 40 or so miles, about the time I was entering the Santee Indian Reservation, the country began to feel like the West, and that feeling continued to strengthen the rest of the day, save for a 10 mile stretch just west of Spencer, where it looked like Iowa, all flat and agrarian.  Listening to the radio I was aware of heavy storms to the south of me, and I had noticed cumulonimbus clouds building to the north while I had been still pottering about on the Missouri River, at Mulberry Bend.  Golf ball sized hail was predicted for the southern storms as they moved through eastern Nebraska and on into Iowa, but although I could see thunderheads off to both north and south, nothing of the kind was threatening my chosen route of travel.  Outside of Lynch, NE, I took a photo or two, of the clouds off to the south.

The Missouri at Mulberry Bend NE

Thunderheads building to the North in South Dakota;
note the Martins hunting insects over the water.

South Dakota to the Right, Nebraska to the Left,
the Mighty Mo in between.

A few miles before Valentine, at Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Reserve, I spotted my first Lodgepole and Ponderosa Pines, thus confirming I was in the West.  Incidentally, Hwy 12 is called the Outlaw Trail, for no apparent reason that I could see other than it evokes the frontier days of yore; it is a State of Nebraska scenic byway, so I expect they needed to call it something and this seems apt, and confirmed my feeling of being in the West, as mentioned earlier.  The Outlaw Trail ends at Valentine; I had been on it the entire way from last night’s campsite, save  for the first three miles.

Storms to the South of me.

Storms to the North of me.

Petrol and ice was purchased at Valentine, and I proceeded to look for a couple of free campsites I had noted on my Free Campsites App, but to no avail; I had bars on my phone, but no internet connection; I didn’t know this was possible.  Up until now, whenever I have had a phone connection, I have also had internet connection!  Thus I was unable to refer to the App to fine tune my route and never found the possible campsites.   After travelling 20 extra miles on two sides of a triangle I ended up on State Hwy 97, at Merritt Reservoir State Recreation Area, right next door to Samuel R. McKelvie National Forest, which is really rolling hills grassland.  There were a couple of pay to camp sites on the reservoir, but I prefer to disperse camp for free on Federal land, so a few miles into the Forest, I found a spot on a forest road off a forest road just before sundown, and settled in for the night, greeted by several yowling coyotes off to the west, under a fat crescent Moon.

The  view the next Morning from my Campsite.

A few minutes later I look over Merritt Reservoir
 as head out to find a breakfast spot a few miles down the road. 
Rain showers began just after I took this photo.

Our Mom Laid to Rest

Wednesday, June 28, 2017; leaving the Twin Cities, 

through Alcester, South Dakota & on to Nebraska.

Back on October 15, 2015 (here), I wrote a tribute to my Mother who had passed away some five weeks earlier, just five days short of her 91^st birthday; the last paragraph from that posting is reproduced here:

I could go on, but I think you get the picture.  Her life was full, and busy and full of memories … she was busy in her church activities (she was getting ready to go to one of her church groups, when she had her fainting spell) … and she still drove her own car (I was not nervous as her passenger two years ago) … and we had (and have) our memories at her Memorial.  And sometime in the Spring or early Summer we will go to the little cemetery on the gentle slope in the northwest part of the little prairie town of Alcester, and place her ashes beside her parents, and listen to the breeze rustling through the prairie grasses, and to the songs of the prairie birds as they welcome one who has been long away.

It wasn’t until this last Spring that we four Siblings, myself, Jill, Jan & Doug were able to get together to lay her ashes to rest beside her parents, in the little cemetery in Alcester, South Dakota; a village that hasn’t really changed much in size since she was born there all those years ago.  The gentle slopes upon which she and our Grandparents lie, are bathed in agrarian tranquility, and it took little to imagine her watching us, at age eight or so as she was when she left this tranquil prairie community, and perhaps skipping about when watching us became too uninteresting.  And as I foresaw in that quoted paragraph above, there was a rustling breeze that came and went through the prairie grass, and the songs of prairie birds were carried gently on it then, just as there were when I stopped by at Sundown on the 28^th of June, the day I began my westward journey back towards Oregon.

The Casket for Mom’s ashes, carved by my brother Doug.

My sister Jill (closest). brother Doug, and younger sister Jan. 

Our Grandfather’s Mandolin, now in brother Doug’s custody.

Final Resting Place.

Old Homestead, settled by our Great-great Grandfather Olav in 1872;

last owned by an Edson, a cousin of Mon’s, in the 1990s. 

On the last days of March her memorial stone was not yet ready, and by now it had been emplaced, and so on an incomparably blue-sky day, I headed southwest from the Twin Cities, and once on Hwy 169 out in the suburbs, I never touched an Interstate.  I crossed one at Worthington, MN, but headed south into the NW corner of Iowa, passing within a few hundred yards the highest point in Iowa (at about 1670’), and within a short time passed into southeastern South Dakota, on the county roads.  All through southwestern Minnesota, through Iowa, and on to Alcester, I was struck by the fresh greens of early Summer, before they become the heavy greens of a few weeks hence.

Our small grouping, Mom & her Parents.

I arrived about twenty minutes before Sunset, passing the local baseball game being played as I approached the tranquil hallowed ground.  There was a man tending to stray weeds, and upon approaching the Edson plot, he came over and offered to see to those wild weeds that were there.  My time being short, and preferring not to have cut off stems to look at, I demurred and thanked him for his consideration.  He would tend to them after I had left.  Quiet moments were passed with a younger Mom skipping about the gravestones, and a young-woman Mom standing by her Mother’s headstone, and a Mom in her late twenties when I was young and we lived in the forests of northern Wisconsin … the happiest time of her life, she told me more than once … and other ages of Mom all gathering there … as the Sun set and the evening came on with dusky fingers from the east.  A warm evening, and tranquil, as I bid farewell, waving to the weed puller & passing the now floodlit baseball diamond … perhaps the many ages of Mom would go and watch the local team … on through Alcester, heading south a dozen or so miles, and then west towards the town of Vermillion, SD.  As I headed west through the gloaming a flash along the roadside; first one, then another, then many in the fields and meadows and groves … fireflies, as I had not seen them since I was a child!  They were with me all along my route through Vermillion, and on south from there six miles, crossing the Missouri River bridge into Nebraska and my campsite on the river, just a half a mile from the bridge at Mulberry Bend National Wildlife Area, where a deer greeted me upon arrival, and the fireflies flashed away as I prepared for sleep, the only person at this site … a magical end to a lovely day.

Morning Glories to bed for the night.

And so the sets the Sun.