The general sense of Nebraska is that it is “flat as Kansas”. That is somewhat true, but largely false. If you drive a road that follows a floodplain, such as I-80, the topography tends to be flat. If you drive off the Interstate, that’s where you find the diverse topography of Nebraska.
The following scenes are north of Alliance, up to the 16 Mile Corner, over to US 385, south to Berea, then to Alliance. That means nothing to you now, most likely, but by the time you take the “tour”, you will see flat land, hills, and a bit of where I live, in Alliance. Don’t worry! There are kitties at the end of the trail!
It’s just before harvest time for winter wheat, a major crop in Box Butte County.
Yeah, just north of Alliance is flat, flat, flat!
The road is pretty much straight for miles…..then it gets gently twisty and hilly.
But there are diversions along the road. For example, Carhenge, which is managed by the City of Alliance.
It’s free but you can buy souvenirs – if you must – at the visitor center! Of course, contributions are welcomed.
View it from your car…
…or get out and walk around it! Quirky, imaginative, a nod to the other one in England! LOL!
This is the land of those amber waves of grain we sing about….! This is a land of horizontals.
The 16 Mile Corner is, well, 16 miles from Alliance. Hemingford is west, or head north to Rushville. South is Alliance.
Not a lot there, but Berea is the third settlement in Box Butte County. This is from north of Berea.
Alliance and Hemingford (“Hemmingford” in Stephen King’s CHILDREN OF THE CORN…!) are the other towns.
The airbase was Alliance’s biggest contribution to WWII.
Tenth and Box Butte. Box Butte Avenue was paved with bricks in 1920. They add charm to the avenue, and the citizens are very proud of them.
“Cruisin’ the Butte” used to be a teenager activity: make endless round trips the length of the Butte to find friends – or trouble! – for the evening.
Alliance has many lovely parks. This is in the Central Park.
Good old Lane 2, where I live!
At last! Something vertical in this horizontal world!
Hollyhocks in front of my apartment were seeded by birds. Thanks, birds!
Lovely!
“What were you doing while I was gone, Andy?”
Andy looks, um, suspicious!
Gad! Dougy wastes no time getting down
to naughtiness right in front of my eyes!
Bad boy! Bad! Bad! Bad!
Brick roads are awesome. And they last forever. The ones in Detroit have outlasted several generations of tar.
The ones in Alliance were set in 1920. Just as you note, they are a very durable (and attractive!) paving.
Carhenge is interesting! I have seen Nebraska mostly from the Interstate. I think it is I-80 that runs through Hastings? That was usually where we stopped for the night.
Beautiful flower photos, Doug, and of course, the kitties!
Yes, that’s I-80. Glad you enjoyed the flowers and kitties. The flowers are volunteers planted by birds, which makes them doubly agreeable: pretty, but the self-perpetuate by feeding birds!
Oh! Where you live is a beautiful place. I love the pictures.
I think so, though after the rainy season, the land turns shades of brown. It is something I love,at any rate! Thanks! (The photos I posted were taken after a rainy spell.)
They look bright.
Yes, it was a nice day!
Thank you for the tour, I have never been to Nebraska. What is Dougy doing wrong?
He’s tearing at the carpet with his “Terror Claws of Total Destruction”!
This post must be a big file. My computer had to think about it before I was allowed to comment.
Carhenge made me think of Stonehenge. It is very flat there. That is the place to have a standard vehicle. You should try a standard around BC….hills, mighty dips and those dastardly turns that one can’t see the end of. Prince Rupert had a big hill with a traffic light at the top. This was coming home from town in our little white standard Rambler. There was always some smart potato head that would zoom right up to my bumper as I was playing with the gas and brake to keep the car still.
Loved your post Doug. I would like to see more.
Jean
Carhenge is a tongue-in-cheek nod to the real one!
Yes it is a huge file. By standard, do you mean one you manually shift? My new car is fun to drive in hills with twisty roads, though it is an automatic. It does have a sport open (i.e. a way to manually shift it with paddles on the steering wheel, an exercise guaranteed to suck gasoline out of the tank faster than a 1950s American land cruiser!), but the automatic works just fine, without the waste of gasoline.
I enjoyed seeing more of Nebraska. We did not stop in that state when we were traveling – four kids and a dog and a cat. And my parents. We were moving back to PA from WY.
I love Wyoming! That state is a geologist’s paradise. I studied geology (my college minor), though I never did anything with that beyond fulfilling a science requirement. (I loved the class!) Nebraska is interesting, too, for all of the volcanic sand and dust, the sedimentary rocks formed from stuff settling out during the great sea that covered the Great Plains.
Thanks , Doug, for the tour . I know now a bit of the geography around where you live .
Is not Alliance a great name for a town? I wonder wher this comes from ?
I re-started the blogging after hesitationsIn friendship
Michel
I was wondering what happened to you, Michel. I was about to send you a message asking if you were OK. Anyway, welcome back!
Alliance was named after Alliance, Ohio, in one version of the history of the town. It also is a railroad division point, and coming together of several lines (an alliance of railroad connections!).
Curiously, the railroad union explanation is one story about how the Ohio Alliance got named, too! Their second myth involves a union of three, then four smaller towns coming together.
http://www.alliancehistory.org/history.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance,_Nebraska
“Alliance” is one of those borrowed words for which we can thank the 1066 conquest of England by the Normans! Thanks to that influence on English, I can (very slowly) figure out written French by guess and by golly! (I wouldn’t say I can speak it or write it, of course, but I can make intuitive guesses as to meaning from the context if the vocabulary used is simple enough.)
yes , many English words have normans origine . They imported in England a lot ofold French words from Normandy ..
It’s fun finding those words and verifying they have Norman roots!
Indeed many words of old French have been imported in England by William the conqsueror after the victory of Hasting in 1066.
Adds elegance to English, and a much richer choice of expressions to say what one wants to say!
Thank you, it was a nice road trip. Your cat is LOVELY!
Thanks! The kitty boys are brothers that the woman who gave them to me called “smoke Persians”. That characteristic shows best when their hair is long.
Oh, you have two. You are a happy man.
Yes, and they play well together! That’s the two together as kittens at the top of my blog.
Nice to see where you live. I’0e only driven across Nebraska once but it was quite a drive, on Interstate 80. I believe Nebraska is the only state with an interstate that goes right across the state. And seeing your pictures really made clear to me why Arbor Day was started there. Thanks for sharing an intersting road trip.
My pleasure, Angela!
This is an outstanding post, Doug! Love the history of the airbase, the wide-open spaces and the boys!
So. Fla. is just as flat, but it’s hard to tell anymore, being so crowded!!
Nebraska is pretty much open and unpopulated. I like it that way! LOL!
Believe me – I understand. I only wish it had stayed that way here!!
I was shocked to hear how many people are down there now!
Wow! Carhenge. I’ve seen that featured on our TV on quite a few occasions.
It’s about three miles (4,83km) north of where I live. It does have a bit of notoriety!
Nice tour. Was up that way a couple of years ago, but haven’t made it as far as Alliance. Someday.
Let me know if you plan to come out this way. I’d enjoy meeting you!
The scenery is beautiful…at times, really flat at times too. I kind of like hills and curves and mountains and the sea…. I also love the flora pix and the pix of the boyz but MOST of all, I love Carhenge. Never seen it but I have seen pix because I like cars, auto racing, cars and CATZ!
I also like the horizontal and vertical motives and of course and particularly relate to Dougy’s “in your face” behavior. He looks kind of like the skunk I just chased out that was eating the cat food bitties in the pantry just now. ~~dru~~
Carhenge isn’t a big enough deal to make a special trip to see, but there are many historical and paleontological sites in this area that, combined, are worth a visit. For example, Mount Rushmore is a bit more than a couple hours drive north of here, and the Crazy Horse monument in Custer is a bit closer. Wounded Knee is about 90 minutes away. Ft. Robinson, the frontier fort where Crazy Horse was killed, is an hour away. Chimney Rock, the iconic Oregon Trail landmark, is a bit less than an hour away. And more!
As for Dougy’s behavior, he doesn’t hesitate to let me know how he feels about things! LOL! Andy is more subtle.
I know Carhenge is not a big deal….but still it appeals to me. Besides, I don’t travel anymore and I never traveled to sight see. Not that I would take a detour or go out of my way to see something but I usually only traveled to see friends or to an auto race.
Now as for Andy….subtle or just cat sneaky? ~~dru~~
It appeals to me, too! I love the whimsy of it. As for Andy, he is subtle, not sneaky! He is a very sweet kitty, shy but loving. His favorite things are to get his ears scratched and chasing his brother.
Hi. I miss the smell of skunks, believe it or not. We don’t have them in
Australia.
But you have platypuses and koalas…. I think that more than makes up for it!
No wonder Dougy was naughty – he wanted to make a statement. He thinks Doug (that is you) belongs home!
Either that or he was telling me I couldn’t walk where he was because he was claiming it as Dougy Territory! LOL!