Jason on Nostr: npub1zt30r…g0v09 I'm in the southern Nebraska panhandle and we sit on top of a ...

npub1zt30rymrqvm3vtdxq4wnknpsy6arkzcttkehwqttympk7ww7ezfqqg0v09 (npub1zt3…0v09) I'm in the southern Nebraska panhandle and we sit on top of a gently rolling plateau that extends west toward Wyoming until the rest of the land rises up to meet it, and is bordered by the Lodgepole Creek valley to the south, and the North Platte River Valley (12ish miles from me if even) to the north and east. On the plateau, it's rolling wide hills and shallow valleys, large draws (dry creek beds), arid dry land, sandy loam and very few trees because of the harsh dry environment. In the valleys where the moisture collects you tend to find flat valley bottoms with a long narrow forest following the river. Because our landscape was largely shaped by the receding waters of the central ocean back in which ever era that was, our largest "mountain" range in the panhandle is actually a long chain of eroded river bluffs, with the original level of the prairies being at the tops of those hills and the valley bottoms being much "newer" or more recently exposed, I guess. Some of these bluff and exposed rocks create amazing geological features, such as Courthouse and Jail rocks, Chimney Rock (the one from the Oregon Trail game) and Scottsbluff National Monument. On the other side of the north platte are the sand hills, which are the largest continuous grass stabilized sand dunes in North America stretching over 200 miles east to west and encompassing a large majority of the center of the state.