The end of the road

in ,

Every so often in my random travels, I end up in what would best be described as the middle of nowhere. Today, I headed north and found myself in such a place somewhere south of Decatur, Nebraska. The gravel road I was traveling on suddenly disappeared without warning, no "Minimum Maintenance Road" signs to be found, and I would up in the middle of a rather desolate part of the flood plain. The photograph above shows the end of this path, a stop sign attached to a tree in the middle of the barren land.


near Fort Calhoun, Nebraska


Fort Calhoun, Nebraska


Decatur, Nebraska

A few photographs from a rainy afternoon

in ,
Random photographs from an afternoon spent wandering immediately north of the Omaha metro area...


Omaha, Nebraska


Omaha, Nebraska


near Fort Calhoun, Nebraska

Last summer's flood left a remarkable amount of sand in the area around Boyer Chute near Fort Calhoun. The whole landscape has been transformed into a nearly desert-like appearance complete with ripples in the sand from the wind. As bad as it is, I'm not exactly sure what will become of this land in the future. It will be near impossible to grow any crops and may take many years for this much sand to dissipate. Boyer Chute has always been one of my favorite escapes near Omaha and it just can't seem to catch a break of late. First two or three years of flooding in a row and now this.


near Blair, Nebraska

After the flood

in

Today was gray and wet, thick with clouds and a cold wind from the north. It seemed the perfect day to spend some time exploring what was left behind when the Missouri River subsided after three months of record flooding. I found gravel roads turned into little more than thick, gray mud and abandoned homes littered with no trespassing signs. The landscape in the floodplain west of Crescent, Iowa is a bit eerie to drive through, especially in dreary weather like this. Everything is dead, whether from the long winter or the brackish sludge left behind by the retreating water.

Unfortunately, the light mist slowly became a steady rain and cut my afternoon short before too long.