Spend a night in the box

In the clasic prison movie Cool Hand Luke there is a quote from Carr the floor walker "Them clothes got laundry numbers on 'em. You remember your number and always wear the ones that has your number. Any man forgets his number spends the night in the box. These here spoons, you keep with ya. Any man loses his spoon spends a night in the box. There's no smokin' in the prone position in bed. To smoke, you must have both legs over the side of your bunk. Any man caught smokin' in the prone position in bed spends a night in the box. No one will sit in the bunks with dirty pants on. Any man with dirty pants on sittin' on a bunk spends a night in the box. Any man loud-talkin' spends a night in the box."

The box is the prisons solitary confinement cell.

I spent almost three hundred dollars to voluntarily spend a night in a 6 foot long 5 foot wide 5-foot-tall plywood box.

You may be asking why would I drvie 792 miles to spend a night in the box?

After wintering in northern Mexico, Texas and New Mexico One million Sand hill cranes (80% of the worlds population) from late February to early April make their way to Nebraska's Platt river Valley to rest and refuel on there way to ther breeding grounds in Canada, Alaska and Siberia.

The best way to see and photograph the cranes is to go to Gibbon Nebraska and the Audubon's Rowe Sanctuary and spend a night in the box on the edge of the Platte river.

I was driven out to my box (they have 6) around 5:30pm, unloaded my gear and was left alone until 9:00am the next morning.

The sun was shining, the temperature was 50 degrees as I set up my camera gear, ground pad, two sleeping bags, put on my long underwear, down jacket and every piece of warm clothing I owned - the temperature was expected to drop to 29 degrees overnight, but the view was great.

Fossil records place sandhill cranes in Nebraska more than 9 million years ago, 80,000 cranes a day can be on the Platte river.

The sun was setting, the temperature was dropping and a 3/4 moon was rising and there were no crains to be seen. I waited.

I leand out one of the 4 rectangle cutout's to photograph the rising moon when I heard the loud, rattling bugle calls of the sandhill crains that can be heard from up to 2 1/2 miles away. I crained my neck to look for them when a small group passed between me and the moon.

I could hear the "whooshing" of the flying cranes as they passed over my box and landed on the other side of the river.

The sounds of cranes flying and bugling filled the air when they crossed back over the river and landed on the sandbars Infront of my box.

The sun had set leaving me no more light to photograph by so I sat a listened to sandhill cranes chattering in the moonlight.

I awoke before dawn crawled out of my sleeping bag, looked out my window and hundreds of cranes were still there, quietly waiting for the day to begin.

As the sun rose the more vocal the cranes became filling the air with their prehistoric calls and it was amazing to be a part of. All of the sudden something caused them to take flight, cranes heading off in every direction the sound was symphonic.

Check out time for the box was 9am so I began packing up my gear, said goodbye to the cranes and headed back to my reality.