With the herd at Broken Kettle

[For the record, I am listening to the angel on my right shoulder this morning, not the squire with the tail and tux and the wretched laugh on my left. He's the one saying, "Scorch Trump this morning for that perfectly damnable phone call he made Saturday to the Georgia Secretary of State." It was, but I won't. 

Nor will I lament, once more, the sorry truth about the Trump's defense, to wit, that the sole reason the man gets away with the 10,000 lies he spews is his evangelical base. There's where he plugs in his power. All those blessed Christians have, it seems, true faith in him. 

But I'm not saying that, not writing it. Like 300 million others, I've got to wean myself away from the drug that is Donald Trump. Georgia's Secretary of State didn't cave--not that it would make much difference because soon we'll have a different President.

So, on to the Loess Hills. Let me start again.]

They're Iowa's little mountains, even though we share them, however reluctantly, with Missouri. From a distance and for the first time, when you see them between Sioux City and Omaha, they're pure apparition, almost mirage. Out of place in the middle of the prairie, they're cute, the region's own sweet little mountains.

For 200 miles, the Loess Hills attend your trip south. They sit on the eastern horizon like a barrier, a dyke, a gorgeous supersized berm. In truth, they're formed and have their being by way of wind--yes, we have wind here. They're sand dunes, sans sand. "Loess," (pronounced "less") is just a fancy word for "loose" or "crumbly," words that describe the dirt that creates the hills. They're just plain darling--really, beautiful layers of loose dirt.

I know it's sexist, and my wife will kill me, but I'm going to say it anyway: the lines created by Loess Hills are fetchingly female.

And they start just here--and a bit south. Go west from LeMars to the Big Sioux, and you'll roll with them, up and down treeless stretches of open ground that will take your breath away. They're a rare and precious gift, ours to love and enjoy.

These folks are walking around in Broken Kettle Grassland, 6000 acres of Loess Hills just north and west of Sioux City.

There is no hiking path, no cement or boardwalk. When you hike in Broken Kettle, you're roughing it. And it behooves you to keep your head up because you're not alone.

The Nature Conservancy, bless their souls, keeps up a herd of 200 buffalo, which makes the task sound as if the managers are baby-sitting. They aren't. Broken Kettle's buffalo herd--there's no roller skating either, by the way--is on their own, except when they get too populace and some culling is required. Otherwise, all you can say is, "they're out there. . .somewhere."

On our way home on New Years Day, we drove around Broken Kettle, hoping to see them. For me, it's never happened. I believed they were out there; you'll find them plastered all over BK's website. But I'd never seen them, not with my own eyes. Six thousand acres of sometimes sharply rolling hills and hollows is one spacious playground.

But there they were.

No, we didn't get up close and personal, and yes, I took some of these pictures from safety of the car, even though there's a tall, sturdy fence between road and grassland. And, yes, I am blessed with a lens with a reach, so I can bring you at least a bit closer, close enough for you to see they are bison and not some rancher's rangy cattle. 

Close enough to see this guy wandering off by himself ostensibly to get even more peace and quiet. 

There they were.

You may need to be a little weird to get a thrill out of 200 buffalo at home in a spacious grassland. I mean, there's no Walmart anywhere close, no tobogganing (although I'm sure you could), no waterslide, no picnic tables, no curio shop, no Burger King. As far I know, you can't get a buffalo steak or even a hot dog anywhere close. 

I've long considered myself a Calvinist, but that doesn't stop me from saying that spotting a herd of buffalo, even a small one, in a spacious garden where they're totally on their own is, for me, a spiritual moment. Once there may have been 2000 here. Not that far away, from the top of Spirit Mound, Lewis and Clark spotted their very first endless herd. 

And there they were, happy in their own world, at dusk on New Years Day. My wife spotted them first. There they were. The first time I ever saw them at Broken Kettle. There they were.

A vision this Calvinist will gladly share.