Beavers: Corkscrews and Hats
Leaving South Dakota behind and heading south, we come upon the state of Nebraska. Nebraska has no National Parks within its boundaries, but does have two interesting National Monuments in its western reaches. National Parks as well as National Monuments are both administered by the Department of Interior and have similar oversight and protection regulations. […]
The Creation of the World and Tom’s Hat
To the west of the Badlands, tucked away near the southern end of the Black Hills, and just south of Custer State Park, is a little gem of a park called Wind Cave National Park. Wind Cave National Park is home to one of the world’s longest caves (137+ miles of passageways), and was established as […]
The Badlands – Good Lands for Traveling
Continuing south, and a bit east, from Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, we come to another signature park of the Great Plains: Badlands National Park. Badlands National Park, a.k.a. “The Badlands” appears abruptly for travelers along Interstate 90 in western South Dakota. The scenery changes suddenly from rolling ranch land to carved canyon […]
Bison Documentary on PBS
We’ll continue to take a look at the National Parks and Monuments of the Great Plains, but I wanted to make a brief, but timely, interruption to note the following film that will be airing this week on “Independent Lens” from PBS. The film is called Facing the Storm: Story of the American Bison. The […]
And Carry a Big Stick
The following several posts will be about the National Parks or National Monuments of the Great Plains. Moving from north to south, we will begin in North Dakota with Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Theodore Roosevelt National Park is the pride of North Dakota. It’s big, scenic, and brimming with wildlife. The park is named, of […]
Blink and You’ll Miss it
Several years back, an excellent book by Dennis Kitchen came out called Our Smallest Towns: Big Falls, Blue Eye, Bonanza, & Beyond. It was a photo essay chronicling the smallest town in each of the 50 states. For each town, he assembled all of the residents, or as many as could show up, to pose […]
A Discouraging Word?
Here’s an update from an earlier story I mentioned in the blog about Ted Turner donating a small herd of buffalo to roam some open space acreage just southeast of Boulder, Colorado: From an article in the Boulder Daily Camera, a study by the Open Space and Mountain Parks Department has determined the cost of […]
The Law West of the Pecos
The last river we will discuss here is the Pecos River. The Pecos River begins in the higher reaches of the southern end of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains just to the northeast of Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is a high alpine area with some peaks rising above 13,000 feet. From there, the river quickly descends […]
The Royal Gorge and the City of Gold
The next major river south from the Platte is the Arkansas River. The Arkansas starts in the Sawatch Range near Leadville, Colorado. The Sawatch is a range if 14,000 foot peaks known affectionately in Colorado as 14ers. The range includes Colorado’s highest peak, Mount Elbert at 14,440 feet. From there, the river descends quickly as […]
Too Thick to Drink, Too Thin to Plow
Continuing our adventures with the rivers of the Great Plains, the next major river as we head south from the Yellowstone is the Platte River. The Platte is really the joining of its two main tributaries, the North Platte and the South Platte. The headwaters for both of these branches is in the high country […]
All Rivers Flow to the The Big Easy
Here’s very quick update on my earlier post regarding Great Plains teams in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. It appears that the Great Plains will be sending one team to New Orleans in what is known as the Final Four. I will return to our look at major rivers of the Great Plains very soon, […]
