Quasi-Intercept into Yankton

August 4, 2007 by
Filed under: Summary 

Eastern NE and southeast SD
10 Jun 2007

We throughly had been enjoying a couple of days of R&R and photography in the Flint Hills, and now it was time to get back on the road again in pursuit of storm potential in ensuing days. We chose on this day to eschew a marginal/HP type threat in SE KS, and instead, to move into interceptable position for any potential over western NE or western SD in succeeding days. Along the way I gathered some rock samples around I-70, and we passed once again through the charming town of Marysville KS.

After leaving KS, we noted additional development SE of FSD associated with the effluent from earlier and elevated morning storms in the same area. We watched this activity, then over the NW corner of IA, from a distance while traveling though and NNW of LNK. Deep towers periodically formed to our N, around Wayne NE, but withered to invisible vapors before we arrived on scene. Meanwhile, the nearly stationary storm SE of FSD finally died soon after the swirling strawberry donut showed up on WxWorx. [That software and hardware was a recent birthday present to Elke from a friend of ours. No way was I gonna pay what Baron is charging for that stuff, but if someone was willing to give it to us…wellllll… :-)]

A new cell tried to form on the E edge of SUX (no photos…driving!), but it SUXed in too much dry air aloft and died quickly, leaving us with a sunset in YKN. From the north bank of the MO river there, we could see anvil material from the MCS that hit VTN. We enjoyed sunset in southerly breezes in Yankton’s riverside park, listening to the calls of whippoorwills riding the winds from the Nebraska side, and photographing the double-decker bridge and its water reflections in the twilight.

For those looking to have an appreciatively transitional Plains experience on any trip northward across east NE, I recommend some combination of KS-177 through the Flint Hills, followed by NE 15. If you’re traveling from the southern Plains into the eastern Dakotas, and not in a dire rush, give it a go. The tallgrass prairie offerings of KS-177 are well chronicled in many places, including Heat-Moon’s monstrous but incrementally digestible tome PrairyErth. Then go N on 77 between MHK-LNK, taking note and photos of some of the Victorian architecture of Marysville. NE-15 then spans the gap between the northern edge of the Flint Hills and the Missouri breaks around Yankton — both fascinating landscapes for the plains enthusiast — and includes a jaunt across the western part of the “Bohemian Alps” as described with exquisite writing of Ted Kooser (e.g., Local Wonders).

I hadn’t been on NE-15 before today, and after the first trip, it’s already among my top four or five north-south drives in the Plains states (including TX-16 from Fredericksburg thru Llano and MWL to just S of Wichita Falls; 177 up and down the Flint Hills; the road from Belle Fourche to Bowman, the route across Thunder Basin National Grasslands and the western fringe of the Black Hills from Lusk to Newcastle to Sundance, the route from Kimball NE through LBF-CDR, and NE-61 through the Sandhills).

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