Here comes Andy!
He came from behind this cat tree, the one where we start the morning with Andy’s back and head massages. (He’s a good boy – all that shredded rope is his doings!)
He stopped by the kitchen cabinets. Doug massaged his back and “scritched” his chin and ears, even opened cabinets to encourage him, but he wasn’t having it!
Andy walked over to the open door, sniffed around, and then went to my bedroom to pout. He wasn’t happy I left him alone most of the day when I drove to Rapid City for my car appointment. He forgave me, yet I could tell that his feelings were hurt!
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I hate to see my little buddy upset but I have an annual trip to Rapid City for routine maintenance and incremental 10K VW-recommended maintenance on my VW. I just hit 40,000 miles/ 64,374 km on the odometer, so the 40K extras came due this year.
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Next, a few landscape photos from my trip:
It’s the Ponderosa pine forest that covers the Black Hills that has a blackish appearance from afar that gives this area of South Dakota the name.
South again in Northwest Nebraska, the lowering clouds over the tableland and the lone tree in the foreground define this part of the state. (Yeah! Yeah! There are flat places in Nebraska, but most of the Panhandle, the western end, is hilly.)
The clump of trees on the far left is a shelterbelt. After the Dust Bowl years in the 1930s, this became a way people saved the soil from the wind. Often you’ll find a farmstead and outbuildings nestled in these trees. Aside from stabilizing the farmland, shelter belts serve wildlife from great horned owls and pheasants to white-tailed deer and songbirds, among many other species, as habitat.
What the heck! This is my town’s big attraction, Carhenge. About three miles from where I live, I was happy to see it after a tiring day of making a 310 mile/ 499 km round trip. Home at last!
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I love my end of Nebraska! I came back after my US Army days in Germany and never considered living anywhere else. All these videos will take you a lot of time to view. I post them mostly for hardcore geography, geology, and history readers who are interested in new places, especially this one which is Andy and my birthplace.
These are just the highlights!
I enjoy watching videos of places I’ve never seen. Scott’s Bluff looks like a great area. Thanks for sharing these.
It’s historic and interesting that you can see all the way to Wyoming looking West and at several important Oregon Trail landmarks the other direction. The geology of the feature is interesting, too. There are small marine fossils that pop out when the bluff is eroded. I never fail to be amazed that my part of America was an inland sea at one time!
Wow so much to see. Great for driving and hiking. It would be interesting to see the fossils along the bluffs.
There are in situ fossil digs both in Northern Nebraska Panhandle and the south of South Dakota. This is a fossil-rich area!
Andy will forgive you. I bet he does worry when you are gone a long time!
Nebraska has some varied and very beautiful scenery, Doug. Thanks for including the videos. I have only seen Nebraska from I-80.
Most people who’ve ben to Nebraska it’s been at Interstate speeds on I-80, which follows the Platte flood plain because that was the path of least resistance, i.e. it is flatter than other parts o th sate!
Thanks for the tour of Nebraska ! Glad your trip went safely and Andy has forgiven you.
That was quite a lot to go through, but I know there are subscribers who can appreciate it and who put together posts equally full!
I think Andy will forgive you, Doug, poor kitty. I did watch portions of each video, you do love your home state, Doug! The sand dunes are an amazing geologic form. I’m glad that the recent tornado outbreaks have missed your area.
Andy did let me back into his life. LOL! John, every place I’ve visited in this country and others were interesting, historic, beautiful, fun to visit. That long stretch through Utah and Nevada of what many people think is void of interest, boring, is very interesting geologically and ecologically, not to forget historically. Your photos highlight that!
Thank you so much, Doug! I have thought about buying a travel van and seeing new places. Problem is this house. And mail. I’d love to see Nebraska, it looks so beautiful! I’m glad that Andy forgave you. ☺️☺️☺️
Mail is a problem for travelers.
Yes, I asked a couple recently online that lives full-time in their RV about this. They use a service like a UPS store address. However, who retrieves that mail for the travelers? And, how would a family member or whoever get that mail to the travelers? 🧐
Exactly.
Another road block…
Poor Andy. Maybe some extra Greenies will help him feel better. Beautiful photos. I will check out some of the videos.
Extra Geenies did help!
Andy missing you and being said while you are gone shows how much he cares for you. That sounds like a long trip for some car maintenance to this old fart.
It’s becoming a long one for me, too. I was very tired after it. On the other hand, VWs are a bit too exotic for local mechanics. I prefer to use the company-trained mechanics at this particular VW dealership. They are very competent and have those special tools it seems every brand of car needs that only dealers have. I took my VW to a local oil change place and they actually turned me away because they won’t ever get my business if I get a car that’s not a VW! I was surprised my VW was too exotic for them to do a simple oil change.
Once, when I drove a Ford Escort in the early 1980s, I had to take it in for a recall to replace a fuel line that posed a fire threat for some reason. It was supposed to cost me nothing and would the half an hour to do. Almost two hours later, the mechanic came out with the fuel line he took off. Seems the nut was metric and his tools weren’t, so, instead of using a crescent wrench, he used an almost workable English measurement wrench, knocked the corners off the nut, had to come up with another way to get the nut loosened (Vise Grip?), then install the replacement hose. Then, yes, charge me for a fuel line that had the nut type his tools worked on, a fuel line that was supposed to be no charge! That’s the kind of mechanics I run into here!
That was a very long day. I did skip the videos, but it is good that you put them on
The videos take a long time most people have time for, but they show a part of the USA that is regarded as boring. It is more dramatic than not, very historic and central to the development of the West than most Americans realize, and pretty!
Sorry Andy got a bit miffed, hopefully he’ll get past that soon and be glad to see you! You brought back some beautiful pics and the videos look good, too. I will have to find some daytime to watch them all, but I will soon as possible.
Andy eventually got over it. The videos are time consuming but are my way of showing readers what it’s like where I live.
I did get time to watch the first one, about Scott’s Bluff today. That’s a 😎 cool place! Will keep slowly viewing. Have to find time others here aren’t trying to sleep, or, need my attention. (Others include, ruffian Kittens.)
It’s an interesting place to visit. The drive to the top is fun; the drive down is a bit scary! The visitors center is worth a visit, too. The 19th Century westward migration crossed through this area.
Rapid City?! I was confused for a second as I know you live in Nebraska, but driving all the way into South Dakota…. I’d forgotten that in the Plains states, forty miles is not that big a deal when it comes to, say, shopping for a car or going to a medical center for surgery or some test they can’t do at your local clinic. (Until it’s winter and the middle of blizzard season, and then you start finding excuses for putting off driving until it either melts away or the snowplows actually clear the highways. Oh, and I forgot thunderstorm and tornado season, and watching hail bounce on your hood and leave dimples all over the car.)
Your photos and those videos do make me miss the Midwest, somewhat. I don’t think I have the guts to go back and try to live through the winters again, but those prairie horizons can be very beautiful, like a Zen painting.
I bought three of the eight cars I’ve owned in Rapid City, had service done on four of them there, three VWs and one Audi. Medical care for me is in Rapid City, Scottsbluff, Denver, Ft. Morgan, Ft. Collins, and Cheynne if basic car can’t be done in my town. It used to be Alliance dialysis patients had to drive the hour to Scottsbluff for treatment, so I am fortunate ther is an excellent dialysis unit here now. Yes, the hail dents are upsetting!
He looks positively Sasquatchy in some of these photos! Andrew, you are quite an enigma!
LOL! He is that.