Agate Fossil Beds, Northwest Nebraska

I judge the size of a town by whether or not it has a Walmart. Perhaps this is a bad habit to get into because I don’t actually like Walmart, but I’ve found that it’s pretty effective. It tells me a lot about what type of town/city I’m dealing with. When I was looking into whether or not to accept a job in Torrington, I Googled (verb) where the nearest Walmart was located. It is in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, a little over 30 miles away from me. I do this because the presence of a Walmart indicates at least halfway decent shopping: reasonably priced groceries, specialty stores, etc. I didn’t want to be stuck in a town with only local general stores and pharmacies to make everyday purchases. I have to do it occasionally when I don't feel like driving to Scottsbluff, but it gets expensive.

 

That being said, I’ve made several trips to Scottsbluff (several to Walmart, I’m sad to admit). Sometimes Family Dollar just doesn’t cut it. It’s cheap and great for the everyday things, but not if you really need a thorough shopping trip with lots of choices. On my drive across the border, I kept passing a sign labelled “Agate Fossil Beds National Monument.” I love fossils and I love free/cheap things. It's a good bet that "National Monument" usually means free. It’s the state and privately owned stuff that you have to worry about charging. I added the Agate Fossil Beds to my to do list, so when I had a day off but didn’t want to drive outrageously far, I made a trip to see it. And of course I wore my Utah Utes shirt my friend got me, because there's nothing confusing about a girl from Indiana living in Wyoming visiting the Nebraska fossil beds while wearing a Utah Utes shirt... Nope. Not confusing at all. If you haven't seen Tropic Thunder, you should. Right now I feel like RDJ: "I know who I am! I'm a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude!" Except I'm a chick, and I'm just wearing my usual random choice of clothing.

The drive was a little longer than I expected, and the reception was horrible. I kept thinking, “Oh I meant to call this person. I’ll just do it on this long, straight boring stretch of highway,” and picking up my phone to dial, only to discover that there was not even a semblance of a bar of service. Naturally, that makes me nervous. In Indiana, I spent a majority of my cell-phone possessing life within cell service. It was odd to discover an area where I couldn’t at least send or receive a text. Since moving out to Wyoming, I’ve seriously had to redefine my idea of “remote.” I didn’t know what “remote” was until I moved out here. And I don’t think my definition will change until I visit Alaska (I WILL visit or live in Alasaka at some point in my life, and I’ll probably try to blog about it if I have service). So I dropped out of coverage a few minutes after turning off the highway and mostly stayed out of it until I returned.

The positive thing is, I saw a lot of tumbleweeds. As mentioned in a previous post, I think tumbleweeds are hilarious, and they don't get any less hilarious the more I see them. I actually whacked one with my car and it stuck to it. I’m laughing as I type and remember this, that’s how funny they are to me. Well, they aren’t nearly as funny when you’re trying to pry one out from your grill. They are basically little dry, dead shrubs that the wind has torn from the ground and bounced across the landscape, picking up other dead weeds and shrubs as they go. They stick themselves to your grill they've been growing there. Of course I tried to catch one as it was bouncing across the road. I saw a big one coming from a long way away, and managed to stop and get a fairly decent picture of it. Anyway, plenty of wide open, desolate, tumbleweed-filled space. The only town I went through only had a couple houses, a barn, and a "Love Jesus" sign.

So when I finally made it to the turn off for the fossil beds, I was a little discouraged. If anything, the landscape had only gotten less colorful and more desolate as I went along. The wind threw my car around the road like a toy, and the best the radio could pick up was Jesus stations and static. Pure emptiness. I don’t know how the Jesus stations possibly stay open. I’m just not sure what customers they are appealing to out there.

Anyway, I turned in and drove a ways until I came upon a building. There were plenty of signs saying to watch for rattlesnakes. The snow had melted, and it was still a little chilly, but I kept a close eye out. I went in the building and picked up some brochures for other stuff to do. It’s not too promising when all there is to do when you walk in is pick up brochures for other places. It got a little better when I watched a free movie.

Basically, a man bought this land a long time ago. I don’t remember dates. I’m just not good with remembering dates. I’m more a concept and visual person. It was in the 1800’s (late 1800’s maybe?). He started digging on his land and found some odd stuff. He called in some more people from a college to dig, and one man found these odd spiraled, corkscrew shapes in the ground. They were fossilized. He thought they were something created by the devil (must’ve been listening to too much Jesus radio, eh?). Well, of course he was wrong. They found fossils of these odd creatures nearby that had created spiraling burrows. The burrows had filled in and fossilized. Over the course of decades, various teams from different universities came in to dig and found skeleton after skeleton of various prehistoric animals. There had been a mass death there. The working hypothesis is that they all gathered around a water hole but died out when it dried up. The odd thing is (and this is why I love geology), you have to hike up the hill quite a bit to get to the ancient water hole. It’s amazing how landscapes change over time. I don't want to repeat everything about the place, just enough to give you an idea and peak your interest. Check out their website for more detailed information and facts. Just look for Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in Nebraska (not the more famous Wyoming location). I don’t want to say a name and get it wrong, so I’ll just mention that a very famous Native American (the most photographed Native American of all time, I think I remember reading), also gifted a lot of items to the owner of the property, who then turned over the property to the United States. This now resides in the exhibit at the visitors center. I got to see lots of animals skins with stories painted on them. I’ve never studied these topics closely, so I’m not sure of the term for everything, but it was a great, extensive exhibit with clothing and various items from the time period. They said they allowed pictures, but I didn't want to post them since I'm not familiar with Native American culture enough to know if it's okay to post that stuff. And I thought it was weird that they allowed pictures, and I'm not sure I believe it, so I don't want to get in trouble by posting them. I've never been in a museum that allowed them, so I'm suspicious.

A met a man who was working there when I came out of the theater room. He asked where I was from, which led me to discover that he is from about 20 minutes away from my hometown and moved out here about the same time as I did. It's a small world! That's for sure. It was nice to talk to someone who could compare things to back home and appreciate how different it is out here.

Agate Fossil Beds, NE, 2 Mile Loop

He told me about the two paved trails they have that go to different dig sites on the property: a 2 mile and a 1 mile loop. The two mile was nearby, so I went with that one after I chatted some more and added to my postcard collection. I was excited to see some of the spiral fossils, but I was disappointed. After seeing who knows how many "Warning: Rattlesnakes" signs I was jumping at every noise I heard, which was a lot since it was so windy I couldn’t walk straight. I got to the top of the hill expecting to see some kind of display (some building or covering housing the spirals since that’s what I was led to believe), but there was nothing. Just some layers of rock that I stared at for far too long trying to understand the sign they had posted in front of it. Overall, the hike was nerve-wracking and unproductive. I didn’t do the 1 mile loop since I’d worn myself out with the 2 mile. I went ahead and drove back to Torrington.

Agate Fossil Beds, NE, 2 Mile Loop

Overall, this isn’t one that I would recommend. If you live nearby or are passing, have a few hours to spend, and are into the things I’ve mentioned, then this could be your kind of place. If you’re looking for Native American exhibits, this one could be good for you. It wasn’t huge, but it did have a wide range of items, and it was completely free other than the gas used to get there.