Big Sky, Wide Land

I realize that I have an east coast perspective, specifically a mid-Atlantic perspective. When you live in a place where views are blocked by rolling landscapes, by trees, by buildings, and by mobs of people, most of whom are sitting in their own individual motor vehicle, you can forget just how large this country is. I mean, you can't back up and see, really SEE what is out there. Well, one thing is for sure about South Dakota, you can really see a long, long way. We saw a long, long way for mile after mile, hour after hour. And I wasn't bored in the least. On my last car trip west, I remember a conversation I had with someone at a stop somewhere on the Oklahoma prairie. The young lady wanted to know if the Pennsylvania Turnpike was lined with trees. She always heard that, and she couldn't imagine a 5-hour drive with trees all along the way. I told her that yes, for the most part, it was a green tunnel of trees. Her eyes lit up in amazement. I never thought the trees were all that interesting. She thought the prairie was one big windy bore punctuated with oil wells and grazing cattle. I think the prairie is sublime.

And I don't want to leave out Minnesota, "On the edge of the prairie," as Garrison Keillor tells us. We crossed the Mississippi at Lacross, Wisconsin early in the morning and after a ride through gorgeous farmland, the prairie opened up to us. It put me in the mood for "A Prairie Home Companion," and we listened to some saved podcasts for a while, laughing with a better understanding of Lake Wobegon's residents while looking out over the landscape they inhabit each week on the NPR airwaves.

We slipped seamlessly into South Dakota by lunch time and stopped at a rest area along I-90.