First Highpoint: the Grasslands of Nebraska

We backed out of the driveway at 6 AM on Monday, July 7th, 2008 on our first journey. Then we stopped for gas, and for Starbucks. Then we really got started, heading up I-25 from our home in Thornton, Colorado to Cheyenne, then east to Pine Bluffs, Wyoming, where we would get off the beaten path. It was the beginning of a 700 mile day, much of it on the backroads of Nebraska, Colorado, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. Yes, all those in one day. We had armed ourselves with guidebooks, road atlases, a GPS, day packs loaded with the Ten Essentials, plus the usual road trip things, like favorite music and books.

From Pine Bluffs Wyoming we headed south along deserted dirt roads into Nebraska, the first state to be privileged by our presence on its high point. Turner was navigating from our guidebook and giving out directions like "go 2.3 miles and turn left," etc. We learned our first lesson: have small bills ready for entrance fees. My smallest was a $20, so we lost a few bucks there.

Panorama Point was fun. We drove through a Bison herd on the way through the private land to the monument. We stopped and logged it on our GPS, signed into the register, and then...

...well then I turned over the wheel to my 12 year old son and let him drive us back out the mile to the main road. It could have been a fatal mistake to let my nearsighted overzealous son take the wheel. But the only thing he could smack into was a bison or two, or the barbwire fence. We have both lived to tell the tale, and Turner got his first driving lesson from a pretty nervous father.

Panorama Point was also beautiful, with great views in every direction of the high plains of Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado. The grass was still early summer green, and the roads seemed to stretch on forever and ever. We decided to navigate via dirt roads through northern Colorado down to Ft. Morgan, and we were rewarded with the satisfaction of more great views of the Pawnee National Grasslands and the Pawnee Buttes. Turner did a terrific job of navigating us through a truly empty and beautiful land.

I'm a mountain guy, through and through, but I have to say that these grasslands had a special and memorable charm. On to Kansas and the imposing and dangerous Mt. Sunflower!