Monday, September 5, 2011

Day 2 - Corn Fields to Hay Fields to WOW!!!

Today's destination was The Badlands.  We started out from St. Joseph, MO, following our Garmin's directions taking us N on I29 to Wall, SD.  Ran into frustrating detours due to road work and decided to break out good old fashioned paper maps.  Much better!  We took 275 to 20 to 83, mostly two lane highways.  Every 20 to 30 minutes we passed through a small town.  Travelled some in MO, a short time in Iowa, a long way in Nebraska, and into SD.

We began our road trip seeing lots more corn fields.  We were amazed by how huge the farming industry is in Iowa and Nebraska.  They are preparing for harvesting corn and lining many fields near the road were large numbers of ginormous farm implements.   Quite a lot of terraced farming going on out here -- something we were entirely unaware of before this trip.  We saw windmills, the old fashioned kind, everywhere.  I think they were used for watering livestock and irrigation.

As we drove NW, the corn fields gave way to hay fields.  We've both seen the round bales of hay in OH fields, but the number of hay bales in fields here is astounding.  We could see the bales for what appeared to be miles back from the road.  There were bales of all shapes, sizes, and configurations.  Most common were the large round bales.  They were arranged differently in the fields.  One field might have haphazard arrangements, another five bales end to end in two rows with this configuration throughout the field, yet another bales stacked in tiers ending with one bale on top.  In one field we saw very large squared off bales with rounded tops.  Another field had very small round bales.  AREN'T YOU FASCINATED!!!  We found it interesting -- does that say something about us????

Yesterday, we became aware of the fact that we saw very few livestock.  After a few hours on the road today, we began to see lots of cattle and a few horses.  We got a real treat just before reaching Murdo, SD.  We were traveling on Hwy 83, a two lane highway.  To the right we  noticed  a large herd of cattle very close to the road being herded by a four wheeler, three horseback riders, and a dog.  It was obvious that they were going to take the herd across the highway.  We were the first car to stop for them.  We watched as the riders expertly moved the herd across the road.  What to them was a common occurrence was to us a day maker!

Just after Ainsworth, Nebraska, the landscape changed noticeably from rolling farmland to hilly, rocky, Western scrubland.   A beautiful pink grass was rippling in the wind across the plains.  Valentine, Nebraska, was the last town we passed through before entering SD.  It was a beautiful little Western town.  Very clean, picturesque.

We made it to The Badlands at 6:30pm.  WOW!  What a surreally beautiful area!  Light was perfect and Bill got in a good hour's worth of shooting.

Big agenda tomorrow beginning with visiting the Heritage Center, a Native American art museum located on the grounds of the Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge, SD.  The Center is directed by Peter Strong, son of my good friend, Peggy Strong.

Signing off till tomorrow, Bill and Marsha, newly inspired by this vast beautiful land called America.

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