1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (75 page)

The Perfect Marriage of Corn and Beef

Omaha, Nebraska

Walk into the headquarters of Omaha Steaks, selling beef every bit as good as what you’ll tuck into at the best steakhouses of America, and you’ll understand why Nebraska has two nicknames. Officially it’s called the
Cornhusker State, celebrating the state’s No. 1 grain crop, but many still understandably prefer the “Beef State,” which dates back to the ’50s. Nebraska harvests 6.9 million head of cattle a year, more than any other state, and is synonymous with 100 percent grain-fed beef so tasty and tender, it’s an icon: Think Omaha Steaks.

Omaha and beef have gone together since the 1880s, when it was an important meatprocessing center attracting thousands of immigrants from southern and central Europe. In 1917 a father-and-son team from Latvia, J. J. and B. A. Simon, founded a custom-cut butcher shop called Table Supply (the name was already on the building when they moved in), selling to hotels and, in the 1940s, the Union Pacific Railroad. In the late 1950s, with the invention of Styrofoam, their
mail-order business exploded. It became Omaha Steaks in 1966, and the rest is carnivore history.

Today the fifth-generation family business sells most of their world-coveted steaks to two million direct-mail shoppers, almost all of whom are return customers. There’s no plant tour (USDA inspectors don’t allow it), but you can go home with the company’s most popular item—four 6-ounce filet mignon steaks packaged to go—from the company’s flagship store, one of 70 retail shops in 18 states. Prices are princely, but so is the product.

Another Omaha icon just as beloved to locals is Johnny’s Café. It’s been around since 1922, when Polish immigrant Frank J. Kawa bought a 10-seat saloon at the same location. With giant red letters that beckon beef-lovers, this third-generation family business specializes in top-quality midwestern corn-fed beef that it ages and hand-cuts right on the premises. It’s all served in a retro-modern dining room, with red carpeting, black bar stools, and buffalo heads. Save room for the Ice Cream Turtle Pie, a frozen block of chocolate and vanilla ice cream layered with chocolate fudge, caramel, and pecans that will satiate most any post-prandial cravings.

W
HERE
: 4400 S. 96th St. Tel 402–593-4223; mail-order, tel 800–960-8400;
www.omahasteaks.com
.
Cost:
$50 for four 6-ounce filets mignons.
J
OHNNY’S
C
AFÉ
: Tel 402–731-4774;
www.johnnyscafe.com
.
Cost:
1-lb T-bone $24.

Land of Unexpected Riches

Nebraska

The windswept emptiness of the plains gives way to a more rugged landscape in Nebraska’s Panhandle, part of the great superhighway for gold-seekers, emigrants, and Mormons traveling the Platte River Valley
from the 1840s to 1860s. The Great Western Migration was the largest voluntary human relocation in recorded history. Some 400,000 people passed through Nebraska, often on foot, while traveling nearly 2,000 miles to California and Oregon. The most-remarked-upon landmark in their diaries was Chimney Rock, a 120-foot sandstone spire atop a 200-foot mound, which seemingly came out of nowhere after miles and miles of the vast prairie. “Towering to the heavens,” as one pioneer put it. (The Indians were less rhapsodic, calling it “elk penis.”)

Cutting north on Highway 385 you’ll come across a man-made (and decidedly more modern) landmark that is just as striking: 38 trashed automobiles from the 1950s and ’60s painted gray and arranged in the exact size, shape, and conformation of Stonehenge, the 4,000-year-old site in England believed by some to be a solar and lunar calendar. Carhenge was built by Jim Reinders, a local engineer, and it allegedly “works,” meaning it marks the solstices and equinoxes.

The Agate Fossil Beds National Monument near the Wyoming border interprets the 19.2-million-year-old fossils from the great mammals that perished in the Agate watering hole. This land was part of “Captain” James H. Cook’s Agate Springs Ranch in the late 19th century, and his unusually enlightened attitude toward Indians made it a gathering place for Chief Red Cloud and other Oglala Lakota (Sioux). In return he received gifts such as Chief Red Cloud’s porcupine-quilled antelope
ceremonial shirt and Chief Crazy Horse’s whetstone, all part of a small but exquisite 200-piece collection on display.

Nebraska is at its roughest in the northwestern corner of the state, sending a siren call to mountain bikers, hikers, and horseback riders. The Pine Ridge Trail cuts a ragged 100-mile arc through the Pine Ridge Ranger District and Oglala National Grasslands, running along rimrock ridges with vast panoramic outlooks. Bison roam Fort Robinson State Park, an active military post from 1874 to 1984 and the place where Crazy Horse, leader of one of the last bands of non-reservation Indians, was killed when he resisted arrest. Large groups who don’t mind sleeping on cots can stay in 1909 barracks; or, for more comfortable stays, individual cabins where officers were once housed are an option.

C
HIMNEY
R
OCK
: Bayard. Tel 308–586-2581;
www.nps.gov/chro
.
C
ARHENGE
: Alliance. Tel 800–738-0648 or 308–762-1520;
www.carhenge.com
.
A
GATE
F
OSSIL
B
EDS
: Harrison. Tel 308–668-2211;
www.nps.gov/agfo
.
P
INE
R
IDGE
T
RAIL
: Chadron. Tel 308–432-0300.
F
ORT
R
OBINSON
P
ARK
: Crawford. Tel 308–665-2900;
www.ngpc.state.ne.us/parks
.
Cost:
rooms from $40.
When:
lodging available mid-Apr–mid-Nov.
B
EST TIMES
: spring–fall.

Some of the automobiles at Carhenge are held upright in pits 5 feet deep, trunk end down, supporting other cars welded horizontally on top.

One of Nature’s Great Spectacles

Platte River Valley, Nebraska

In the same way they have for thousands of years, a blizzard of sandhill cranes descends on a 30-mile stretch of the Platte River between late February and early April to rest and refuel while migrating north to their summer breeding grounds
. It’s the world’s largest gathering of sandhill cranes—about 500,000—along with 10 million mallards, northern pintails, and snow geese passing through the area, creating one of nature’s showiest displays. Fifty thousand bird lovers from as far as Tasmania and Tokyo come to experience the bugling calls and quasi-comical long-legged mating dances (both the male and female dance for each other) of these tall, imposing cranes with distinctive red foreheads.

The sandhill cranes are drawn to the Platte River because its shallow, braided channels keep predators like coyotes at bay while the migrating birds regain their strength and sleep safely at night. In the mornings they explode out of the river like fireworks, wheeling in the sky before settling in nearby wetlands and farm fields to feed and rest, while the yearlings court mates that will become life partners. At dusk they return to the river, landing like giant
weightless moths, each with a wingspan of 5 to 6 feet. Sandhill cranes are the most abundant crane species, representing 80 percent of the world’s crane population, and this critical sliver of habitat is essential to their survival.

Although there are bleachers and bridges for free public viewings along the river, the best way to see them is on guided tours offered by the Nebraska Bird Observatory, at Crane Meadows Nature Center near Grand Island, and Rowe Sanctuary & Iain Nicolson Audubon Center near Gibbon. Led by experts, these tours take you into outdoor blinds right on the river, where you can observe the birds without disturbing them. There are two tours: one at 5
A.M
. before the birds awake, and another at 5
P.M
. before they roost for the evening. Serious birders sign up for Crane Meadows Nature Center’s aerial sightseeing trips, a magnificent crane’s-eye view of the river.

Fowl aren’t the only emigrants to make use of the Platte River. Although pioneers quipped it was “too thick to drink, but too thin to plow,” 400,000 people between 1840 and the 1860s found its combination of water, hard riverbanks, and nearly flat terrain made a natural “highway” for travel along the Oregon Trail, California Trail, and Mormon Trail, along with the Pony Express, the overland stage route, and the transcontinental railroad. The Great Platte River Road Archway Monument brings the experience to life with narrated dioramas, moving lights, and thunder—kitschy but fascinating exhibits that show how our predecessors piled all their belongings into wagons and handcarts and walked across the country following that most powerful of instincts—hope.

W
HERE
: 100 miles west of Lincoln.
C
RANE
M
EADOWS
N
ATURE
C
ENTER
: Grand Island. Tel 308–382-1820;
www.cranemeadows.org
.
Cost:
aerial tour $100.
When:
late Feb–early Apr.
R
OWE
S
ANCTUARY
& I
AIN
N
ICOLSON
A
UDUBON
C
ENTER
: Gibbon. Tel 308–468-5282;
www.rowesanctuary.org
.
When:
daily late Feb–early Apr; closed Sat off-season.
G
REAT
P
LATTE
R
IVER
R
OAD
A
RCHWAY
M
ONUMENT
: Kearney. Tel 877–511-2724 or 308–237-1000;
www.archway.org
.
When:
closed Mon–Thur, Nov–Feb.
B
EST TIMES
: late Feb–early Apr for crane migrations, 5
A.M
.–8
A.M
. and 5
P.M
.–7
P.M
.

Hundreds of thousands of cranes descend on the Platte River Valley in early spring.

Where the Prairie Whispers

Nebraska

This mesmerizing sweep of unspoiled, rolling prairie in north-central Nebraska escaped the plow for one reason only—the soil was too sandy to grow crops like corn. The Sandhills are the largest set of stabilized sand
dunes in the Western Hemisphere, ranchland still blanketed with Indian grass and bluestem that stretches across 19,000 square miles of the state. Achingly beautiful in its own quiet way, it is one of the least familiar of our country’s geological curiosities. Created some 8,000 years ago, the mountains of sand were whipped into drifts by powerful winds and
slowly covered with grass over time. The largest of these dunes are 400 feet tall and 20 miles long, creating an undulating topography unique in North America.

The best way to understand their full grandeur is to drive the Sandhills Journey Scenic Byway, a 272-mile trip that Charles Kuralt called one of the nation’s ten most beautiful drives. It runs along Highway 2, starting in crane country’s Grand Island (see previous page) and cutting northwesterly through mile after mile of rolling grassy dunes and endless sky. You can drive for long stretches without seeing another car—that’s how empty it is.

With its lakes, marshes, and tall grasses, the 72,000-acre Valentine National Wildlife Refuge is a major stop for migrating songbirds and 150,000 ducks. More than 260 species of birds have been spotted here, including herons, terns, pelicans, and long-billed curlews. And when the prairie is carpeted with wildflowers in the spring, prairie chickens and sharp-tailed grouse gather to perform their elaborate, foot-stamping courtship displays, said to have inspired local tribal dances.