Little Oil Wells Everywhere

That title doesn't have anything to do with the picture. This was the sign at the first rest area in Nebraska ( small yellow sign says, alarmingly, "Caution, rattlesnakes are native to this area") But as I left the rest area, the only things moving in the surrounding fields were little oil derricks (sp?), dipping and bobbing like mechanical birds.

I don't know why Montana gets the Big Sky moniker. Wyoming has an awful lot of sky and Nebraska has even more-- there's hardly anything higher than a stalk of corn, nothing to interfere with all that sky. Which wouldn't be a bad thing, ordinarily. But as I was driving to my destination (York, Nebraska-- over 800 miles away from last night's lodging), there were all these ominous warnings on the radio about thunder storms with lightening close to the ground and ten-pound hail stones and such. As it got dark, the light show started. It was like being in Cleveland for the fourth of July-- you can see the big fireworks downtown plus all the little fireworks in the suburbs and in the scofflaws' front yards. So there was a huge display of lightening to my right and about four smaller displays, and they all seemed to repeat about every 20 seconds. As if the sky was pulsing. Sometimes the classic lightening bolt, sometimes one that branched upward like a giant candelabra, sometimes one that groped sideways, like a spectral hand. I couldn't hear the storm, so I assumed it was pretty far away ( just in case the lightening might hit closer, though, I didn't drive near any fuel trucks). But since the sky was so bare of mountains and trees-- so damn big-- it was pretty scary. Isn't there some sort of exhibit at science museums, a glass globe lights up with electrical currents when you put your hand on it? It was like being inside that globe.   ¶ 8:15 PM