A Taste Much Sweeter Than Wine (Omaha, Ogallala: homes, buy, live)

[SCGranny]

OK, I know ya'll'll probably find a few errors here; but I am at heart an inspirational writer, and this is what I posted yesterday in my blog, talking about my visit to Nebraska:

I have never been a water drinker. Ever. It always tasted flat, corrupted, even nasty. I would boil it for coffee or boil it for tea, and drink that product, or drink bottled flavored water if I had to. I hate sodas (except as mixers) they taste like sweet corrupted poison to me, acidic and cloying and thick like swampwater.

So it was with amazement that I took my first sip of Niobara water. The Niobara is a river that runs in Nebraska through hundreds of miles of pure sand, which cleanses it of all the tainted residues. It is formed in ice and snow, but it is a partner to the Ogallala aquifer that runs underneath six states; in Nebraska the aquifer is about 6 feet down and endlessly available in its sandy caverns. Wells on the aquifer in Nebraska never run dry.

Grab a glass of that stuff when you are thirsty, and all of your previous perceptions about water disappear. Cold or room temperature, it is sweet and as pure as a snowflake, untainted by additives and governmental regulations. No metallic taste. No industrial or social corruption. No whitely cloudy cast or yellow or orange tint. Nothing floats on or sinks to the bottom of the glass, even when it sits. It is as translucent as starshine. Dance it across your lips, and they are instantly humidified. Let it roll over your tongue, and you will experience an amazing thing - no taste. None. Water that pours down your throat, that you can feel re hydrating every cell, without taint, without corruption, without that scummy feeling or nagging aftertaste of unknown sediment.

Go out to the river, and stand on a bridge span and look down. Even now, when the melting snows have turned the river into a passionate thundering tumble, look down twenty feet deep and you can see the bottom sand and rocks as if they were reachable. The water isn't blue or green or whitely foaming - it is clear, clear like nothing, like air, like water. The folks who tube down it in the summer say that it is that way even when its dervishly dancing passions have been banked by drought or heavy drafting use for the cattle or irrigation of hundreds of ranches. Clear and pure. No odor at all - nothing to smell.

Elk and antelope, turkeys and mountain lion, raccoon and deer, leave their prints in the mud around the river. Prints as large as my own foot - size 8.5, nothing to sneeze at - or larger. No water snakes whisper in the trees above it or wallow in darkened muddy depths - too cold, too clear. Rattlesnakes make their homes in the bluffs around the falls, big sidewinders that bother no one but the foolishly invasive. Stand next to one of those roaring falls and you can hear the incredible silence like an undercurrent - the animals move quietly here, back and forth, to drink and to depart; even the birds are silent on the river. Ten feet away and their cacophony begins again, but the river seems to be a reverent spot, silent except for its own roaring majesty. Standing next to the clamoring falls, with one's foot next to a huge cat's print, one feels a delicate shuffle along her backbone, a frisson of fear that in this noise that cat could be anywhere, watching - and one feels at sunset the eyes at one's back, watching and waiting for the intruder to depart so that the natural flow of life on the river can begin again.

Out of this Darwinian, prehistoric atmosphere comes the clear cool tastelessness of the purest and sweetest water with which I have ever satisfied a thirst. The absence of corruption, nature in its purest form, and I can put it in a glass and drink it, be a part of it, let it be a part of me.

[soonerbahusker]

cool. thats a nice read scgranny. not to one up ya but if you want that in a bottle, long pine has a water called 7 springs. 7 springs gets long pine creek flowing. it goes into the niobara. it's so cold. so clear. but i'm pretty sure you can buy it around there. there's no bottled water like it

[Sandhills Guru]

Now that is nice writing!

[Sandhills Guru]

Originally Posted by soonerbahusker

cool. thats a nice read scgranny. not to one up ya but if you want that in a bottle, long pine has a water called 7 springs. 7 springs gets long pine creek flowing. it goes into the niobara. it's so cold. so clear. but i'm pretty sure you can buy it around there. there's no bottled water like it

I know of a couple towns in eastern Nebraska who had wells go bad for a while and relied on Seven Springs for their water. That is some mighty fine pure drinking water for sure. None of this reverse osmosis or filtered stuff, just pure clean refreshing water.

You might want to watch dipping your cup into Long Pine Creek for a drink though, you might have yourself a nice rainbow or brown trout in that glass!

[Dave1215]

Makin' me miss that area... might just have to get out of Omaha...

[tpabes]

You're a good writer SCGranny, you paint a really good picture.

[jeepejeep]

Very nicely written! I'm guessing it's similar to the purest, most wonderful water I ever drank when I was high in the Absaroka (I think that's the spelling) Mountains in Wyoming. We camped at 11,000 ft and the streams were so clear and the water so sweet I wanted to bottle enough to drink for the rest of my life. All other water since has been a disappointment. I'll give that Niobara water a taste when I finally get out there to Nebraska.

[Dave1215]

Originally Posted by jeepejeep

I'm guessing it's similar to the purest, most wonderful water I ever drank when I was high in the Absaroka (I think that's the spelling) Mountains in Wyoming. We camped at 11,000 ft .....

Were you high because of the 11,000 ft altitude -or- were you high because of something else while at that altitude?

[jeepejeep]

Ummmmm it was the altitude...yup,yup that's my story and I'm sticking to it!!!

[nebrgirlgeorge]

SCG,
I hope you have gotten to see many of the wonderful things in the great Sandhills by now. I never truly appreciated it until I moved to Denver for a year, and then again when I moved to NE Nebr.

The water is a main thing you notice first. I know how I hated the water in Denver, and I have "become accustomed" to the water here. I have had worse. But at every windmill on our place when I was young, there was a can so you could get a drink if you were thirsty. That water, as you say, really quenched a severe thirst in the summer. Youngsters now days would never think of drinking from a rusty old can, but we did - and we survived. Or at least physically, I am sure there are those that would say I suffered from it mentally! LOL!!

You certainly painted a wonderful picture that made me homesick all over again. Didn't think you got homesick at my age - but you do.

If you get a chance - and are of a mind for a road trip, you need to ask where Eli is and go see the town that really no longer exists. It used to have 2 grocery stores, a bank, and at least one bar. The guy that lived across from the grocery store sold the most (I probly have the name wrong) Aerowind mills in several years. He made the Omaha World Herald with an article of his achievement. He also made caskets on the side. Don't ask me how those 2 businesses went hand in hand, but he made them. The church there, my Grandpa built, and it is unique - unless they have since sided it? It was sided with shingles that were cut on the outer layer with a pointed bullet effect. Since then they have built an outhouse to match, and even put in a multi-colored window so as to fit with the church.

My sis says I find things interesting that no one else would. But if you have an interest, let me know what you thought. My email is posted. And I am truly interested in stories you have surely encountered in your move.

I am very interested in your stories so far, of the Sandhills. The only gas station in Merriman is not only a gas station, but a place to swap stories, it is run by a very prominent cattleman, and is well respected in the community, and he can tell you some stories.

If you subscribe to either the Valentine paper or any other local ones, they carry a column written about the old and new times. It was his son that wrote the letter to Paul Harvey. Some of the things he writes about, wouldn't be of interest unless you had lived there 50 years and know the people that lived there back then. But I usually find something of interest to me.

And what do you think of the front of the bank in Valentine? I think that is one of the most interesting buildings and it sure is pretty. But then I know it takes very little to impress me. LOL!

I am just wondering if it was worth the long search and longer move out here. You will certainly experience some blizzards, and yes, it gets hot, but as they say, it is a drier heat. I am so happy for you, I know you will fit right in and meet and make many new friends - everyone is a friend out there. Well, most everyone. And I have never tubed the river, that activity started after I left. We just went to the closest spot in the Niobrara to swim. Usually was straight south of Eli, but when my sis got old enough to drive, we were allowed to go to the Horse Shoe falls, and that was much more fun as the water was deeper.

I check often for your pictures, and your stories. I wish you and your family the best!!

Consider yourself given the classic Sandhill Wave,
And the best to ya!!
Nebrgirlgeorge