Platte River

Last Sunday I took a drive over to the Platte River State Park near Louisville (lew-us-vil) about 50 miles from home. It's a pretty place that reminds me a little of the Palisades in Illinois, but without the cliffs. The Platte filled its channel due to the snowmelt. Usually it's full of sandbars with only one or two small channels. This is probably the narrowest stretch in its wandering through the state. I would love to see what it used to look like before dams & irrigation.

On the way home I passed through the town of Weeping Water. The map showed that it has an historic district as well as some quarries. Quaint little towns always interest me (antique shops), but in this case I was more interested in the Quarries. This part of Nebraska is covered by tens of feet of either mud (glacial till from the Kansan glaciers) or loess, which is basically dust that settled out of the air during the last ice age. There aren't a lot of rocks to look at, so quarries are pretty exciting for me to look at.

The town of Weeping Water is 2 miles from the main highway. The 2 mile stretch is one continuous limestone quarry. Everything in sight is covered with grey limestone mud and dust. The town itself is cute - it's nestled in the steep hills of a little canyon. Some of the old buildings in town were built with the local limestone. This church is a good example. The rust stains are from chunks of iron pyrite in the stone. I never realised it, but the pyrite (iron sulfide) is the result of the stinky hydrogen sulfide put in place by bacteria - the same bacteria that give Florida its yummy well water. I really miss that water.