Home on the Range

exploring Nebraska's grasslands in a truck camper

We pulled off the road in the Ogallala Grassland, into a boondocking site. I got out of the truck to help Doug park between big patches of prickly pear cactus which were blooming yellow and pink.

The sun was strong and hot, but there was a constant wind. To help keep the rig cool, Doug decided to put up our awning. We didn’t need the awning at all last year so it took some trial and error. While we were pushing levers and pulling on straps, a white pickup truck appeared out of the grassland.

The driver leaned out the front window. “You folks need any help?”

I said, “Nope, just messing with the awning.”

The two guys laughed and waved and drove on.

I wondered what their life was like, that they rode around on the range in a truck all day, and felt a bit envious.

After we got the awning up, we sat in the shade of the truck and watched the birds and felt the caress of the wind. Eventually we fixed ourselves a sandwich. Then, around 6:30, with two hours of daylight left, we went for a walk across the grassland.

We followed the pair of ruts where the truck had appeared. The ruts dipped down into swells, and then climbed back up. The view was constant — of waving grass as far as the eye could see — but also ever-changing. The grass here showed spring green, and there dark green. Here it was brown and crumbling, and there in yellow blooms so thick they brushed our knees.

Birds flew all around. Mainly they moved like swallows, dipping and soaring and calling to each other, but there were also other birds, unfamiliar to us.

The grass waving in the wind made it appear that the whole prairie was moving, like a sea. But it was not only the grass that shifted and changed. The hills themselves seemed to swell in size and shape as we walked up and down. The horizon appeared different each time we rose out of a gully.

To the north we could make out the hazy ridge of the Black Hills. These ancient peaks have the softened look of a formation that’s been ground down, like the Shenandoah mountains back home.

To the south and west, along a far horizon, were buttes. Some formed pale ridges that looked impenetrable while others stood alone and created distinctive outlines. To think that these shapes served as markers for pioneers in years past.

Underfoot the soil was dry and cracked, and in places, thick with prickly pear. We kept an eye out, but didn’t see any snakes.

Then Doug spotted a pair of pronghorn antelope on a ridge. They were silhouetted, watching us. I wasn’t sure if they were antelope or deer, which are much more familiar to me, but when they turned to bound away, their markings and the shape of their antlers were evident.

It was only the second time that I’ve seen antelope in the wild and I was thrilled. I found myself humming “Home, home on the range!”

Did you learn that song in elementary school? Tell me in the comments — was I the only one who sang it lustily in fourth grade?

O give me a home where the buffalo roam, where the deer and the antelope play!

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day.

Home, home on the range!