High Plains Drifter

Landscape photography in the Nebraska Sand Hills.

I left Dodge City around 7:30am with the idea of some landscape photography around the sand hills of Nebraska later on in the afternoon and evening.  After a brief visit to the North Platte NWS forecast office and lunch, I made my way to Thedford.  After checking into the motel and about a 20-minute catnap, I began my little tour of southern Cherry County.  While Cherry County is loathed by storm chasers given the vast expanse of nothingness and a dearth for roads, it is quite scenic.  Rolling hills and ancient dunes of grass covered sand make up this landscape.  It is a very expansive ranching country and there are several very scenic unpaved and one-lane paved county roads.  I decided on a route that took me north from Seneca then west through ranchland to state highway 97.  I then proceeded back to the southeast on Brownlee road then back southeast on Seneca road completing a nearly 65-mile loop.  There were several large ponds of water with an assortment of waterfowl and other birds present.  I was surprised to find a couple of swans in one of the ponds.  I am not sure if they were Trumpeter or Tundra swans though, since they are so similar in appearance.  Countless windmills and cattle, of course, given the ranching land use, which made for good elements in a number of my images.  Scattered cirrus clouds also completed the composition on a number of images versus just an ordinary bland blue sky.

I was also scouting out some potential moonrise locations to shoot from.  I wanted to get a good telephoto (~400mm focal length) image of the moon rising with sand hills and/or a lone windmill in the distance for perspective.  What was troublesome, however, was that on the eastern horizon, the cirrus was thicker, and I wasn’t sure if that was going to ruin my moonrise opportunity or not.  Moonrise was 8:12pm, and the moon was about 97% full, rising just a little bit before the sun setting.  Sunset colors in the sky were not to be had, since the sun was setting behind thick cirrus to the west as well.  I was fairly bummed about that, and given my pessimism, I just totally abandoned the idea of a decent moonrise, and just resumed my trek back south to Seneca and highway 2.  Well, lo and behold, looking off to the east-southeast at about 8:20 was the big moon off the horizon.  Crap!  I was fortunate to be in a good spot, though, and I quickly pulled off and set up the tripod to get a few images of the moon with the sand hills (vertical compositions).  I then went on my merry way about another mile or so when I spotted a distant windmill which was almost perfectly located with the moon about 25 minutes after moonrise.  This was the first time I’ve ever set the tripod up on top of my jeep, because I needed to get a little more elevated since the top of the windmill was only barely clearing the horizon line.  It was just enough of an increase in height, shooting from atop my jeep, to get this shot of the moon and the windmill.. another vertical composition.  All in all, I was rather pleased with this 4 and a half hour shoot across southern Cherry County!

Begin:  Dodge City, KS
End: Thedford, NE
Day Four Mileage: 481 mi.
Trip Mileage: 1770 mi.

21 images from this day’s shoot:

Palo Duro Canyon at night under near-full moonlight

There isn’t a whole lot to talk about concerning the second day of my chase/photography vacation.  I made a last minute decision to abandon the idea to stay south (Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Pass for Day 2 and chasing Central/South Texas Day 3).  Trends in the models were less and less favorable for an isolated supercell in an area I feel comfortable chasing.  This ultimately turned out to be a good decision, because at the time I am typing this summary, storms developed south of Waco and by sunset were east of I-35 between Austin and Houston.

Instead, on Day 2 I decided to drive out toward the Palo Duro Canyon/Caprock Canyons area.  I was initially somewhat intrigued at the possibility of an isolated storm in a pathetic 500 J/kg CAPE environment, and I leisurely drove across the far southern Texas Panhandle watching cumulus struggle to develop into towering cumulus in the lower to mid 30s dewpoints…despite quite chilly temperatures aloft.  I reached Caprock Canyons state park, but it was about 6:00pm by that time.  I didn’t spend a whole lot of time here, though, as I was feeling pretty fatigued from the long drive from Roswell.  At around 7:00pm, watching the last of the cumulus dissipate, I decided to take the scenic Highway 207 drive north.  About 20 miles north of Silverton, I stopped for a little bit to photograph some of the flooded farm fields from a recent heavy rain event.  I was thinking initially of just driving straight to Dodge City.  I then changed my mind and decided that, since there was a near-full moon, I would do some late night photography of the Palo Duro Canyon… so I drove over to Amarillo for a late dinner and got a motel room for the night.  I slept from about 10:00pm to 1:00am and then set out to the Palo Duro Canyon via Wayside.  I spent about an hour and a half photographing some of the same farm fields with water as well as the Palo Duro Canyon at a picnic area and roadside pull off on the south side of the canyon along Highway 207.

Begin:  Roswell, NM
End: Amarillo, TX
Day Two Mileage: 389 mi.
Trip Mileage: 1007 mi.

14 images from this day’s shoot: