I knew that the odds of catching the storms racing north-northeast along Highway 83 north of Thedford, Nebraska, were low. Storms had eluded me all day, and with the sun low in the sky, I assumed that this might be my last shot at salvaging something from the day. I had long since abandoned any hope of seeing a tornado.
I had never even heard of the Sandhills before this visit. I am a native Texan, and at the time, I was a PhD student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, so maybe my ignorance was permissible. The Sandhills were stunning to me, but my hyper-focus on the line of cumulus congestus just to my west prevented me from giving them the reverence they deserved. I turned east off of Highway 83 onto a compacted sand road in southern Cherry County. Recent rain had made the roads as slick as, well, wet sand, and after sliding sideways through a sharp turn and dropping my right rear wheel into the bar ditch, I instinctively shifted my focus away from the fleeing storms and onto my driving.
The road rose slightly as it ambled northeast; I glanced to my left and saw a fan of crepuscular rays radiating away from the summits of the line of towering cumuli to my west. Near the top of the hill, a lone tree stood stalwart along the fence line paralleling the road. My photographer instincts took over, awakened by the majesty of this juxtaposition of light and shadow. I stopped the car, grabbed my camera, tripod, and bag and walked back down the road to the tree. A steady south wind pulled the scent of wet soil and grass from the surrounding fields. I reached the tree and watched, mesmerized, as lobes along the tops of each cumulus cloud cut shadows into the hazy light emanating from the sun hidden behind them. I took a handful of shots before the sun emerged from behind the last cumulus in the line. Illuminated by the late day sun, the texture of each dune was revealed through the contrast between warm western light and cool eastern shadow. I widened my gaze, and textures melted into simple shapes, hills of green and gold stretching to the horizon. The storms were gone, but I had discovered the majestic Nebraska Sandhills.