Through Nebraska

The lower South Dakota area is also famous for its fossils and many dinosaur bones have been found here including the largest, most complete skeleton of a T Rex.  At historic Hot Springs we visited the Mammoth Site.  Columbian and Woolly Mammoths looking to escape the bitter cold of the Ice Age were attracted to the warm pond at Hot Springs and every now and then they would slip into the steep sided sink hole and become trapped.  Their bodies became entombed in the silt.  The site has a climate controlled building over the top of it and the bones are displayed as found (in situ).  It shows some of the best ice-age fossils on the planet and we enjoyed the tour as we learnt about it.
Travelling south we entered Nebraska, another state with large rolling prairies and many ranches making hay.  They seem to sow grass in large round circles, water it continuously with huge walking sprinklers and then harvest it.  The feed suppliers had the hay stacked neatly out in the open in their yards while the smaller farmers left it in the meadow where it was made.  On the back road that we took we only saw 1 car in the whole 40 miles of highway.  And yes, the driver had a cowboy hat on.
We cut back through into Wyoming on I80 (the pony express trail) to visit the Ruts Historic landmark and Register Cliff as the history behind the names captured our attention.  The ruts which are some of the best preserved on the Oregon trail and cut several feet deep into the sandstone, were made by thousands of wagons on their way to South Pass, a valley that enabled emigrants to cross the Rockies.  As emigrants travelled along the trail, they marked their names and the date of their journey in certain places to signal to friends and family travelling later that they had made it thus far, hence the name Register Cliff.  It was a special place to ponder about the pioneers and we could imagine them camping there beside the river, the campfires and the stories shared.