Nebraska

6/17/2024 10:20:00 AM

Nebraska

Lakota Winter Count

Location: Scottsbluff
When: end of May
Miles traveled: 444.6
Price of gas: 3.15
Interest: Oregon Trail
High point: Lakota winter count
Low point: KS tick + stories of tornadoes + CO rattlesnake = enough fear for two mostly sleepless nights at a windy and grassy NE campground.

Environment: Hot sun, cold wind, farm and grass fields with occasional unexpected bluffs.
One thing learned: 90% of people who traveled the Oregon Trail survived and made it to their destination.

Camping Next to a Zoo and other stories by Rebecca.

Camping Next to a Zoo:

When camping next to a zoo
One cannot forget about poo
It's smell comes for a visit
Uninvited guest without limits.

Strange sounds are heard at dusk
That make me want to fuss
A cat in distress, I worry
But a large bird singing the story.

Other than these, it's fine
Camping is still as divine
Under the moon
(Home really soon)
Camping next to a zoo.

Road Slowly Traveled:

A furry animal slowly creeps across the road. Little limbs stretching out as far as they will go. Tail curved up away from the hot pavement. Why is this plump prairie dog crossing the road in such a slow manner?

Chimney Rock

Travel through time:

Imagine traveling lanes, reducing down to a single file line. Everyone slowly travels over the same ground. A nice wind cools your hot sun baked face. A few days ago you passed what the Plains Indians call Elk Penis, or Chimney Rock as you call it, because no one wants to explain that to their daughters and really, it looks like a chimney, was monumental. One third of the way to your destination. And thankfully no one has started asking, "Are we there yet?" .

Man walking in wheel ruts

After traversing through grasslands, the tall rocky bluffs look majestic, startling, and welcomed. It's shadier near the bluffs, but the ox and wagons can not travel over those tilted slopes, so they remain in the sun. The soft sandstone below you blows away bit by bit, with each passing hoof, wheel, and foot. Amazingly, in less than 20 years, a well worn path through the sandstone will be carved so that even 160 years later it will still be distinguished as the path you and your family, and your community took. The Oregon Trail.

This is a blending of the passage through Scotts Bluff and, 70 miles west, modern day Guernsey where hundreds of wagons and thousands of oxen used the same narrow trail and left their ruts in the sandstone.

Photograph of a Mormon pioneer family

Credit: Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, X-11929

Lakota tribes recorded their history in Waniyetu Wiyaawapi (Winter Count). An image would be painted onto the animal hide for the major events of each year. The pictures started in the center of the hide ans spiraled outwards. I enjoyed figuring out what the images represented and learning how people's names are depicted. The name Red Cloud, (a Lakota chief) is shown as a group of red colored stacked half circles, and the name James Cook (a white rancher who traded with and spent time with the tribe) is shown as meat on a stick roasting over a fire! It has me considering what I would draw for the names of my family members.