When I finally returned to Western Nebraska, I really wanted to spend some time with Raegan and Wyatt. I hadn’t spent much time with them in the run-up to graduation. And I had planned more time but the detour to Phoenix changed my timing. They understood. So we picked something they would enjoy together. I took them and their cousin from Jeff’s family to the Scottsbluff pool to swim. It was a hot day and a great day to be pool side. The rain and clouds arrived about 15 minutes before the pool was going to close so it worked out great.

When I dropped them off at their farm, the sun was moving low in the sky and behind some clouds. It drizzeled – not real rain but enough to generate a full rainbow over the fields.

It was then time to hit the road. I was heading north and west. I had a couple of good options. I woke up with a simple plan: head toward Thermopolis, Wyoming, take the scenic route, and enjoy the drive. Some days on the road, the West reminds you who’s really in charge. Flash floods had shut down the road to Scottsbluff, Nebraska. A wildfire at Fort Robinson closed the route to Lusk, Wyoming. For a while, every direction I looked came with a barricade and a blinking detour sign.

My family, who farm here, haven’t had meaningful rain in months. Not a sprinkle, not a passing shower — nothing that sinks in. The kind of rain that matters simply hasn’t come. The soil is powder. The pastures are stressed. The hay fields are producing less. And the corn? Water restrictions are already tightening, and everyone knows what that means: lower yields, higher feed costs, and eventually, higher beef prices for every grocery cart in America.

My daughter had been watching the routes as well. She knew where I was heading. She had learned that the flash flood damage had been repaired, but the fire-closed road was still closed, and the fire was getting worse. In fact, where I had stayed last year with Doug and Cheryl was threatened. I felt sadness at the damage that was being done but I was glad I had a route out of the state.

I headed back to Scottsbluff. As I left Scottsbluff, I saw a giant American Flag park along the side of the road heading west. There were a bunch of antique vehicles parked along the roadside, along with the ladder truck that was hoisting the flag. Well, Wyatt, Natasha’s youngest, loves old vehicles, and I didn’t know if they were new or not, so I carefully snapped a picture of each one of the vehicles. Now that I was making my own postcard, they would make a great postcard for Wyatt and Rhu specifically.

As I headed toward Thermopolis, the sky started doing that dramatic High Plains thing — towering clouds, bruised edges, the kind of light that makes you reach for your camera even while you’re checking the radar. Another storm was brewing. Just like a couple of days before, that storm dropped almost no rain where it was desperately needed. A few miles away, it dumped so much water so fast that it triggered flash flooding. Feast or famine, often within the same county. The West isn’t just dry — it’s erratic. The systems that used to bring steady, predictable moisture are wobbling, and the land is feeling every bit of it.

Driving through all this — the closures, the detours, the smoke, the storms that don’t land where they should — you start to understand the West in a different way. It’s not just scenery. It’s a living ecosystem under stress, reshaping itself in real time.

And for those of us traveling through it, the lesson is simple:

You can’t always get there from here.

Not today.

Not by the route you planned.

Not without adjusting, rerouting, and respecting the land’s mood.

But there’s beauty in it too — in the rainbows after the storms, in the resilience of the people who live here, in the way the land still surprises you even when it’s struggling.

And that night as I was hanging out in the hot Spring pool at the RV Park in Thermopolis, I was able to catch this second full arch rainbow for the second time in three days. I hope this means that the weather will soon be improving for all of those who are trying to cope with this erratic environment.