Leaving Broken Bow, you first come to Merna about 10 miles up the road and lying in the highly productive Dale Valley, which is surrounded by grass-covered, hard land hills. Travel another 10 miles and come to Anselmo, the gateway to the Sandhills. In Anselmo, one of nature's sweetest gifts is the honey produced by all-important honeybees. Chandler's Sandhill Honey sits on your left as you enter Anselmo and is a stop worth making. You'll not want to leave there without purchasing one of the many delectable honey items from Nebraska hives! Their products can be found in area stores if the plant is closed; and by all means, don't miss St. Anselm's Catholic Church - The Cathedral of the Sandhills.

Now's another opportunity to enjoy a quiet, enthralling piece of geography just off the Byway. If you travel six miles east of Anselmo on the hard surface county road, you'll arrive at Victoria Springs State Recreation Area. Victoria Springs is the third oldest area in Nebraska's state park system, so multiple generations have recognized its many attributes. It is part of the original homestead of Custer County Judge Charles R. Matthews. One of the two buildings on the property was his home, and the other was the first post office in the county. The recreation area's name derives from the mineral springs on the park's 60 acres. In the heyday of spas, Victoria's waters were much acclaimed and were bottled and sold throughout the U.S. Victoria Creek flows through the park, which is home to modern cabins, electric pads, tent campsites, a five-acre pond, a picnic shelter, and a hiking trail. Inscribe this park on your mind in indelible ink as a place to return to someday, or take an extra day on this tour to hang out there overnight and enjoy its peaceful ambiance. When it's time for you to leave, drive back west to Anselmo and, once again, travel the Sandhills Journey National Scenic Byway.

If your home is in an area or community where car traffic never goes away, you've noticed, since leaving Grand Island, that driving Highway 2 is a picnic compared to where you come from. That realization is about to increase exponentially as you leave Anselmo, leaving the hard land behind, and head northwest into the approximately 20,000 square miles, or 12.75 million acres, of Sandhills – a place like no other in the world! These sprawling, grass-covered sand hills can make one feel tiny – in a good way! Charles Kuralt said it so well, "…writers inevitably use the metaphor of a 'sea' to describe the 'hundreds of thousands of acres of grass and the hundreds of thousands of acres of sky'…". You're entering, to reiterate, the largest area of stabilized sand dunes in the western hemisphere.

As you drive the 20 miles to Dunning, you'll pass cattle ranches, most of the homes of which are not visible from the highway. Ranches in the Sandhills typically cover thousands of acres, and it is not uncommon to drive one to four miles or more off the main road to the ranch headquarters. Nature's bounty – grass - is the rancher's "crop," and the ranchers harvest it with prodigious numbers of cows or, on a few ranches, native American bison. They have learned to care for this very fragile "soil" – really sand containing a bit of humus created by the decomposition of the native grasses – at all times, e.g. not to overgraze it. Incessant wind, sometimes soft and caressing, but at times, gale-force and cutting can lift exposed sand in overgrazed areas, driving it downwind and creating blowouts in its wake. Blowouts are denuded areas of sand from which the wind has ripped out the prairie grasses. In some cases, on the downwind margins of some blowouts, additional grass may be buried by the air-borne, blowing sand. Combining the small areas of blowouts and the never-ending sea of grass and hills against the far-reaching sky creates unforgettable, mesmerizing, and very picturesque scenes.

Another natural feature, and the most important, is the great body of water that underlies the Sandhills and much of the rest of Nebraska and parts of seven other plains states. The Ogallala Aquifer, also known as the High Plains Aquifer, is a vast underground lake stretching from the Texas panhandle and northeastern New Mexico into southwestern South Dakota. The aquifer, where its surface level is above the floor level of the Sandhills' valleys, creates countless lakes across much of those 20,000 square miles. This whole Sandhills area is a wildlife bonanza, including waterfowl of many descriptions and deer, antelope, predators, and many other smaller species.

Not only are lakes abundant, but wet meadows also exist where the water table is just below the surface, and the prairie grasses are naturally irrigated. These wet meadows cover large areas where the flora is rarely lacking for moisture and wildlife flourishes.

Wildlife flourishes and the meadows make great hay crops for the ranchers. By haying the meadows, the grass is kept very palatable and nutritious, e.g. tender and higher in protein content, for wildlife and cattle.

While driving through the Sandhills, you'll note countless windmills. These windmills, powered by an abundance of wind "native" to the area, pump water out of the aquifer that is then deposited in stock tanks. Here cattle supplement their water intake from the natural lakes. You'll need to search the internet for "Sandhills Savior," by Baxter Black, the undisputed king of cowboy poetry, to know the appreciation Sandhills ranchers have for the wind, the water, and the windmill. If you can't get it, contact those of us with SJNSB at the visitors center in Broken Bow, and we'll get it to you ASAP. The poem will cause your appreciation of the Sandhills to intensify!

About three miles south of Dunning, a paved county road strikes off south toward Arnold, 32 miles away. Each year, ultra-fast sports cars, e.g. Corvettes, Lamborghinis, Porsches, Mustangs, etc., participate in the Sandhills Open Road Challenge rally-style 55-mile road race, which covers much of the road from Dunning to Arnold and back. If you want to personally enjoy the Sandhills up-tempo, strap on your helmet, and pay the hefty entry fee for the annual rally!

As you approach Dunning and come down off the hill into town, you'll cross the Dismal River on the southeast corner of this sleepy little ranch town. Then, just a quarter-mile north, you'll cross the Middle Loup River. These two rivers converge just northeast of Dunning, a mile and a half to continue as the Middle Loup. They and other rivers, including the Callamus, the Cedar, the Elkhorn, the South Loup, and the North Loup originate from the Ogallala Aquifer in the form of springs arising from the ground in the Sandhills and flow downhill in a southeasterly direction, eventually ending up in the Platte River and then the Missouri River. In addition to its myriad other natural gifts, Nebraska possesses more than 79,000 miles of rivers. This is more than any other state, except for Alaska and Texas, which are much larger states geographically than Nebraska. The High Plains aquifer is a gift that keeps on giving.

Dunning is the largest town in Blaine County, with a population of 104 in 2017. A stop at the Sandhills Heritage Museum on the north side of the main street will be well worth your while. Here, you'll get immersed in the history of this bona fide Sandhills ranching community where rivers converge and the tried and true ways of grazing and the range and haying the wet meadows still prevail. Blaine County's county seat is Brewster, 17 miles northeast of Dunning. Brewster had, in 2010, 17 hardy souls, making it the smallest, by population, seat of county government in the U.S. It is also the only county seat in the U.S. without a post office. The only post office in Blaine County is in Dunning. Multiple county seat towns across the Sandhills are very small in population. This low population density is part of what keeps the Sandhills so enchanting, inviting, and unique.

Moving on northwest 11 miles to Halsey and paralleling the Middle Loup River on your left, you'll see the sign to Purdum. You'll recall being invited to participate in the Sandhills Open Road Challenge, a rally-type race that runs from Arnold to Dunning. The Loup 2 Loup is a similar race running from Halsey, on the Middle Loup River, to Purdum, on the North Loup River, and back to Halsey. This occurs annually, typically in early August, on the Thursday before the Saturday the Sandhills Open Road Challenge occurs. Just as in the SORC, the L2L is a wild ride through the Sandhills – only this time on a single-lane oil road. Single-lane oil roads scattered across the Sandhills are a must-see/drive in this sea of rolling grass-covered sand dunes. Should you decide to take the 14-mile drive from Halsey north to Purdum, and should you meet someone traveling the opposite direction, you'll need to stay right with two tires off the pavement to provide room for the other guy. Just make sure you keep two tires on the pavement – you don't want to get stuck in dry, loose beach-like sand!

Sandwiched between the SORC and L2L, is the Callaway Shootout which is the epitome of all drag races. Should you elect to do this gig, you'll be back in hard land country at Callaway, a land of canyons and rugged hills.

Speaking of Callaway, if you listened to the audio tour, you know that Print Olive and his gang, who had a ranch near the South Loup River east of Callaway, were a tough bunch. But stealing horses wasn't part of their modus operandi. Not so for Doc Middleton, who spent much of his outlaw time in the Nebraska Sandhills collecting a would-be remuda. Historical documents suggest the king of horse thieves stole up to 2000 head of horses during a two-year period. He was not considered a good neighbor. Doc eventually died of an abdominal knife wound while cooling his heels in jail for selling liquor illegally from his Wyoming saloon.

One mile west of Halsey is the entrance to the Nebraska National Forest, Bessey Ranger District. This beautiful landscape of rolling hills of Ponderosa Pines, Spruce trees, Eastern Red Cedar, other tree families, and native grassland is a merging of the natural rangeland with mankind's insertion of trees. It is the largest man-planted forest in the western hemisphere. This 90,000-acre forest is a naturalist's dream come true. It provides a myriad of adventures in the outdoors, including camping with RV hookups, swimming, tubing, kayaking, or canoeing in the Middle Loup River (at your own risk). Try fishing in the river or the pond inside the entrance. Go four-wheeling, cycling, and horseback riding (at your own risk) with your mounts across miles of trails. Watch grouse and prairie chickens from blinds as the males perform their dance in leks in the spring. Besides many species of birds, other wildlife includes deer, coyotes, antelope, bobcats, mountain lions, and other smaller species. The hiking trail to the lookout tower is the best opportunity to see a panorama of the vast forest. Be sure to take the walking bridge across the river to read and learn about our prairie river system.

The Bessey Nursery, consisting of 76 acres, 46 of which are irrigated, resides in the forest and is the oldest federal tree nursery in the U.S. It provides, to multiple conservation districts in the upper plains states, up to 4.5 million bare-root seedlings per year, as well as providing container plants and seeds. Up to 100 species, depending on the year, are available. It lies near the forest entrance just on the south side of the Middle Loup River.

As you leave the forest and get back onto Highway 2, turn left toward Thedford, the 'Crossroads of the Sandhills,' about 17 miles away. Here you will have an opportunity to catch up to your appetite at a few ranch town eating establishments that prepare food reminiscent of your Mom's home cooking. While in Thedford, don't miss the Little Girls Lost Historical Marker and Bronze Statue. This memorial to the two young Haumann sisters tells a tragic story of the unforgiving nature of the Sandhills. The sisters got lost in an area where lakes were not present, and early May heat punished them relentlessly. You'll find this monument in the center of town, a block south of the Byway. Additionally, if you enjoy the transition of the natural to the canvas, you'll want to visit the Thedford Art Gallery located right on Highway 2, also in the middle of town.

During the warm months of the year, consider renting some kayaks, tubes, or one or more cattle watering tanks from Sandhill River Trips while in the Thedford area. Your trip and watercraft are reserved by calling Ewoldt's Grocery at 308-645-2235. Outfitters with Sandhill River Trips will strategically place you on the Dismal or Middle Loup River and pick you up where you want to get out of the water. If you haven't tried the cattle tank, replete with lawn chairs, you may want to take this memory-creating mode of conveyance!

Maybe a kayak race would stimulate your competitive juices. The Middle Loup River Challenge takes place each September. This 28-mile-long race draws competitors from a large radius and follows the Middle Loup from about seven miles west of Thedford to the Middle Loup River Guest Ranch southeast of Thedford. If trying to win it all isn't your gig, and you're into serenity, just cast off onto the river to lay back and float a shorter distance while enjoying the sounds of the water and the sights of wildlife while enjoying the hills with maybe a few puffy clouds overhead. Contact Sandhill River Trips or Sandhills Journey National Scenic Byway for more information.

If you are into spending some time fishing the rich waters of some of the natural, aboveground lakes of the Sandhills, while in Thedford, you will want to backtrack a mile east on Highway 2 to northbound U.S. 83. From that junction, travel north approximately 35 miles to the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge, a Sandhills area of multiple lakes that are a veritable mecca of fish, including bass, perch, bluegill, crappie, and northern pike. Big Alkali, a lake not on the refuge but adjacent to it, also contains walleye. Depending on the time of year and the aquifer water table level, you may experience the adventure of driving through a bit of shallow water for a short distance over the highway. The calm, gentle water comes up to lap at the road's edges and occasionally crosses it.

Should you venture north of the refuge to Valentine (approximately 20 miles), you'll encounter the Niobrara Scenic River on the north edge of the Sandhills, where it separates sand from hard land. This river inherits much of its flow in the Sandhills after originating in eastern Wyoming, and canoeing, kayaking, tanking, and tubing are available, originating in Valentine. Its scenic, eastward progression takes it approximately 200 river miles to its mouth, where it empties into the Missouri River.

Assuming you are finding yourself in the Thedford area at the end of your day, you'll find good lodging in the form of a couple of hospitable motels. The bar/café and restaurant that were your choices for lunch will be ready to serve you again in the evening. Striking up a good conversation with locals at a neighboring table will give you a real feel for this unique land you find yourself in. The dialog may cover an array of topics, including the current year's level of precipitation (which is critical for range species growing on the sandy upland soil), how calving went for the ranchers, to your newfound friends wanting to know all about you and where you come from.

If it is a clear-sky night with little to no moonlight, drive north or south of Thedford a few miles before you call it a day. Stop your car at the entrance to a ranch road, preferably on a hill and out of sight of any ranch lights. Look up into an amazing display of stars and file this unforgettable mental picture in your mind forever. Find the Big and Little Dippers revolving around the North Star and be mesmerized by the magnificent Milky Way. If you call during business hours, the Byway Visitors Center in Broken Bow (308-872-8331) or the office in Mullen (308-546-0636) will contact a friendly rancher that will provide you with a fantastic, strategically located viewing place. As you settle into bed this night, the visions of thousands of stars etched in your mind will lull you into blissful unconsciousness.