Day 3, Tuesday 22 August

Later in the afternoon, on Monday the 21st, we pulled into Lincoln, Nebraska.  We were a bit disappointed that we didn't see the Solar Eclipse, but knew there would be many pictures and videos and stories shared by others; so we weren't too upset.  We found a steakhouse right on the main highway, a place called "Cheddars {made from scratch kitchen}".  There we ordered steaks; of course, what else would you order in the middle of the plains?

Jerry's rare steak came out just the way he wanted.  As did my medium well ribeye.  The sides were forgotten, but I do remember the warm apple crisp with vanilla ice cream.  So good, almost as good as the perfect steaks, but not quite.  The steaks had a fresh rosemary seasoning that worked well to set just the right note of great taste, texture, and smell.  If we ever return to Lincoln, we would make a point to find Cheddars and sample their steaks again.

Our airbnb hostess showed us into our quarters, the basement of a 1950s ranch style home that had been made into an apartment for her daughter when she was in college.  We were both asleep by 9p, the earliest I think either of us have been tucked in for years now.   Early bedtime meant early to rise, way Way WAY too early.  We both woke around 2a and lay there til about 3 and then got up, admitting we weren't going back to sleep.

Originally, I'd planned to visit the International Quilt Study Center and Museum, which was closed on Mondays.  But on Tuesday they were to have a noon lecture, as well as starting their public tours at 11a.  Since we woke so early, I couldn't see waiting around for that long, and after leaving a note to reassure the host that our accommodations were fine and apologizing for setting off the Wiener Patrol {she had two dachshunds that would most likely raise a ruckus when they heard us leaving the basement by the side door, and they did, a fine raspy rowdy ruckus indeed}; we loaded the car with our bags and head west young man, head west!

By the time the sun greeted Tuesday morning, we had already stopped at an Iron Skillet, one of the few actual sit down restaurants at truck stops that remain in business.  We were just about to turn northward, heading thru the Niobrara River Valley and the Sandhills.  I'd also picked up a brochure focused on Nebraska's roadside flowers and grasses.

We were well into the plains and were beginning to see vegetation that we don't normally have in Mississippi.  There were fields of yarrow, poppy, sunflowers, black~eyed susan, sandreed, wheatgrass, wildrye, and needlegrass.  We were beginning to see vast ranches and altho we still had rolling hills, everything was carpeted with various green and colorful vegetation; but nothing that was taller than waist height.  We did see some cattle, occasionally; but mostly, it was just miles of fields with the smattering of groups of well tended and neat clusers of buildings.  The houses were often multistoried, but still smaller than the big huge barns.

There were hundreds of miles where we did not pass another vehicle, it was very peaceful and soothing.  Then we drove into a small town called Valentine, Nebraska; just before we crossed into South Dakota.  They had a small visitor's center, but the t~shirts weren't my size.

We'd been listening to Peter Cozzens's "The Earth is Weeping:  The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West".  Much of the countryside we would view that day had been the locale for many of the skirmishes that were being discussed one those specific disks that we were listening to.  It was sobering and thought provoking.

Once in South Dakota, we turned west, leaving the sandhills, riding into the Badlands.  We were on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.  I do a fair amount of knitting and crocheting for charity and have donated many hats, scarves, and afghans to Pine Ridge over the years.  I wanted to see for myself this place that was so destitute, and yet so very large.

It's bigger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined, a huge sweeping land of plains and buttes and mesas and layered rock formations with startling bright colors.  A land of dry dirt and loose gravel, the vegetation no longer lush and verdant.  The sage brush and other scrub brush grew no taller than my knees.  The few and far between trees grew low and twisted, close to the ground, as tho hunched from the winds.

Gone were the sprawling ranches, well tended and manicured buildings.  Deserted mobile homes dotted the prairie now.  The occasional home stood back from the highway, down a dirt road, in the middle of a space that seemed to exist isolated and alone.  Multiple vehicles clustered around several small single wide mobile homes.

Pine Ridge is one of the poorest places in the USA, it was THE poorest until a couple years ago, when two other reservations in South Dakota became even more impoverished.  The land is huge and sprawling, yes; but only about 25% of it is suitable for agriculture.  Less than thirty thousand people live on the Reservation.  Little to no local work is to be had, there are no thriving economic sources, no industry, no agricultural base, no sustainable cottage industries that can adequately support a family, let alone a multigenerational family that live together in a trailer.

The land is barren and eerily beautiful, but the area youth flee as soon as they can.  We'd stopped for lunch at the Wagon Wheel, a rather run down bar that served buffalo burgers, fries, and pizza.  And lots of alcohol.  We talked the barkeep, she grew up there, just down the road, she nodded a bit to the south, on a ranch that her family had had for generations.  She was a white woman, she said that in her classes at school, her family ranked among the wealthiest, but compared to out there, she nodded to her truck with Rapid City plates, they were dirt poor.  "Still," she shrugged, "now I appreciate the beauty of all that, I missed it all when I was a kid."  She sighed and stared off, "I thought I was really something, getting out, going to Rapid City.  My brother owns this place, it ain't much, but it's a helluva lot too.  I drive down from Rapid to help him out."  I asked how far that was, and she shrugged again, "oh, about 75 miles, give or take.  One way.  How you like them burgers?"

A few more words about Pine Ridge:  unemployment is between 80 and 85%; a full half of the residents live beneath poverty level; many families have no electricity, no phone, no running water, and no sewage system; most folks have no health care or inadequate access to health care, and yet, some of the highest rates of depression, suicide, diabetes, alcoholism, drug addiction, malnutrition, and infant mortality of the USA can be found right there, on Pine Ridge.

I'll continue the rest of Day 3, our trip into the Black Hills of South Dakota in the next post, leaving behind the poverty of Pine Ridge and entering into the glitz and glam of Deadwood and the motorcycle rally center, Sturgis.