The Pine Ridge will usher you home

Views I've previously posted

No matter how long the stay, a certain sorrow comes when leaving the Black Hills. 

I hoped to take 385 back through the mountains, to pass a number of highlights from the previous three days, but that route added too much time. 

It was better to take the highway skirting the Black Hills’ eastern flank. We turned at the glass dome of Reptile Gardens and cut through a last stretch of Black Hills before the road turns flat and the mountains turn blue with distance. The road skirts the Pine Ridge Reservation and the eastern rolling hills give away nothing. A casino on the state line signifies the crossing into Nebraska. 

At first nothing changes. Then the rugged hills and crumbling peaks return. These new hills form the rugged Pine Ridge, a sliver of high country between the White River and the Niobrara River. Nebraska has a series of state parks and national forest protects other portions of the unexpected high country. We crossed several rounds of pine-covered, crumbling hills that are unlike anything else. We crossed the Niobrara River, a navigable river by canoe downstream, but here just a series of slow-moving puddles.

Gift shop attendant

When the Pine Ridge settled down into plains, the next landmark did not wait long to emerge. We cruised into Scottsbluff, metropolis of the Nebraska Panhandle along with its twin city Gehring. I have always enjoyed it. I have visited the top of Scottsbluff four times, and three times I have journeyed here with different people. 

The Scottsbluff afternoon started at Riverside Park and the city-owned zoo, the Riverside Discovery Center. It was a sad place this time. The zoo had seen a wave of avian flu, which killed several of its big cats. RDC was home to two elderly tigers, a jaguar, and two younger mountain lions, but none survived. 

The deaths were recent enough that the enclosures still showed pictures of their late inhabitants. Well, I don’t know what happened, but it’s sad. The employees seemed to feel the same sadness. We get attached to animals, and their handlers are no different. 

The RDC’s signature animals are its chimpanzees, a group of five with one male and four females. All have silver in their whiskers, but the RDC boasts a modern facility for them, with a big yard, ample places to climb and a comfortable indoor enclosure for warmer days. We arrived around noon, right on time for the chimps to receive their health checks and their sweet rewards for cooperation. 

Juicy rewards

When I last visited RDC, two grizzly bears called it home. Only Smokey remained, after his brother Bandit died due a bout of rare encephalitis. Last time they were rambunctious sub-adults, still playful but already so much larger than other bears. Just their size made them dangerous to humans. Smokey recently woke from his winter brumation; he dug a den below the water tower in his habitat. 

Like any grizzly, he paced away anytime humans tried to come near him along the fence. This time, I took home something from Smokey. 

The gift shop had paintings done by RDC’s spider monkeys, chimpanzees, and more. They also had a set of paw prints from Smokey. For $20, I couldn’t go leave the last prints on the wall. I needed some good news after the RDC’s bout of bad luck. 

From Riverside Park, it's a short drive across the North Platte to Scotts Bluff National Monument, just south of the city across the North Platte. 

 Last time I fulfilled a dream and hiked to the top of Scotts Bluff then walked down the road. With the road open, time required a quick trip to the top. Scottsbluff comes alive from up here. Twenty-plus miles east, Chimney Rock stood in clear view. The landmark of the Oregon Trail is not always easy to see from this distance. 

Smokey's art 

Above Scotts Bluff, prairie falcons and cliff swallows soared. A red-tailed hawk screeched in the distance. I would almost be disappointed if one hadn’t, since I once captured a hawk soaring over Scottsbluff, one of my personal favorite photos. 

Scotts Bluff and its road that rises to the top of the mesa have the feel of a smaller version of Colorado National Monument. There’s something to be said for experiencing landscapes from the bird’s eye view. Scotts Bluff offers and its gnarled trees provide a place unlike any other on the Great Plains. Scotts Bluff has a distinct feel to differentiate it from the Pine Ridge or the Black Hills. The lovely, unusual terrain has a charm that demands repeat visits. 

I have come to hate the journey down Nebraska Route 71, since Scotts Bluff then the Wildcat Hills all slip away as the high plains and their endless miles of tumbleweeds take hold. But there are less-exciting paths back to Colorado. 

I will take miles of empty plains over congested interstate. I can always add some distance to the return trip if I can spend some time in Scottsbluff.

Car ready for the long haul home