No, you don't have to go all the way to Bolivia to see salt flats. You can find one in Oklahoma. 

Salt marshes like this one make up a very important habitat for wildlife, especially migratory birds, which makes the Great Salt Plains a great stop for nature lovers. 

But what makes this a really unique experience is that you can go crystal digging. If you dig a small home in a designated area, you'll soon find clusters of selenite crystals than naturally form in the salt flats, and you're allowed to remove them and take them home as a really special souvenir!

This is a duck I saw on the lake at Great Salt Plains State Park in Oklahoma, getting ready to dive underwater. I'm not completely sure on the species; it kind of looks like a merganser, but if any birders out there can help me identify it for sure it would be appreciated! Anyway, there were two of them floating around the lake's surface diving down to look for food on the lakebed. They actually spent more time below water than above - they disappeared for around 10 seconds at a time, then only surfaced for a second or two before they dove back under again. It was really neat to watch them! 

Windmills are a pretty iconic sight as you drive through America's farmland. Modern irrigation systems have made them less common than they once were, but there are still plenty out there. And I think they can be quite a beautiful sight. A lone windmill turning in the breeze, standing among the rolling grassy hills, silhouetted against a clear blue sky, maybe with some cows wandering around below it. Conjures a nice image, don't you think? 

Usually, however, you just see one windmill at a time. But what if I told you there was a place where you could see dozens of windmills all gathered together? A magical place for antique windmills to go when it's time to retire? Where they spend their golden years in the company of other like-minded windmills, swapping stories about their creaky blades, or reminiscing about the big drought of aught-six? 

Well, my friends, that place exists, and if you haven't guessed from the title of this post, it's called the Shattuck Windmill Park. 

Alabaster Caverns, located about 30 miles northeast of Woodward, Oklahoma, is a different sort of cave than the caves most of us think of. The more common caves, the ones we're more familiar with, are limestone caves. They form as water moves through limestone rock, cutting and dissolving away passages and cavities as it goes. The action of water dissolving and redepositing limestone leads to the formation of beautiful cave structures like stalactites and stalagmites, columns, draperies, soda straws, popcorn, and ... bacon? Yeah, bacon. 

But there's not a speck of limestone to be found in Alabaster Caverns. Like much of the surrounding countryside, Alabaster Caverns is found within a thick layer of gypsum rock. In fact, that's where the name comes from - alabaster is a type of gypsum. And it is the gypsum that makes this cave so special and unique. 

You won't see any of those typical cave formations that you'd expect from a limestone cave, but what you will see is just as impressive and inspiring. 

When I visited northwestern Oklahoma for the first time earlier this month, I was completely blown away by the scenery. The area is full of tall mesas with red cliffs, and it's something that's really unexpected. The surrounding areas of Kansas and central Oklahoma are mostly made up of hilly grasslands, so the appearance of these brilliant red hills and cliffs really takes you by surprise.