Back to the Future

We walked out the door this morning and faced a temperature of -7 degrees (not wind chill). Tonight the low temperature with wind chill is predicted to be -32 degrees. There is at least a foot of snow on the ground and it is drifting to two feet or more.

I have joked with friends about traveling to enjoy the “bright sunshine, warm breezes, palm trees and ocean views” in Nebraska over J-term. I’m not wrong; just a few years too late:


Eastern Nebraska, circa 75 million years ago.

In the late Cretaceous period, three quarters of Nebraska was covered by a body of water known as the Great Inland Sea. Prehistoric sharks and plesiosaurs prowled the depths. Pretty cool stuff. You should look it up.

Eastern Nebraska, circa 20 hours ago.

In the Holocene epoch of the Quaternary period of the Cenozoic era (read: right now), three quarters of Nebraska is covered by fields of various grasses and crops. Livestock and combines prowl the lengths and widths of the fields. This is pretty cool stuff too (though maybe not as cool as sharks and plesiosaurs). Our immersion team doesn’t need to look it up; we just look outside the windows.