Golden Rails at Sunset / Nebraska

It took a while for the rain to clear out - longer than they said - but after that, later in the afternoon, my husband and I went for two short hikes at local wetlands. On one side of old route 220 is the Dreibelbis Birding Area. On the other side, about a mile down, is Soaring Eagle Wetland. 

We visited the birding area first. We stopped to bid our nearby mechanic holiday greetings. Then we crossed the road and the railroad tracks, and walked over to Soaring Eagle Wetland to get a look at Bald Eagle Creek and the new walkways they are putting in to make the area accessible.

We don't tend to be out so late in the day, but you don't have to be out late at all to encounter darkness this time of year. And so it was that we were present for the clearing at day's end, the golden light which followed, and then the sunset, which was reflected on the rails as we crossed back over to get our car and head for home.

There's an extra photo of the golden late-day sun lighting up the landscape. The sky was still clearing at that time, and (finally) bright sunlight lit up everything in wild tones, as it can do. There is a new duck blind whose wood is so fresh and bright that it almost seemed to glow yellow. My husband thought it looked like a scene from Nebraska!

My soundtrack songs are Gordon Lightfoot, with the Steel Rail Blues, and (perhaps unsurprisingly) Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska. I believe Nebraska was the first Springsteen album I ever bought, on audiocassette, back in 1982.