When I used to drive through the heartland of our state, I considered it a wasteland. I mean - miles and miles with barely a tree in sight - and I really love trees - and green, left me counting the miles till we reached the other side.
When I got married, I discovered that my husbands family owned their own little house on the prairie, a tiny, somewhat crooked little place, in a old, empty town. In time, my husband convinced me to take some road trips to "the cabin" as we call it, free being a pretty good price for accomodations.
We've since spent a few weekends there, and it creeps a little farther into my heart with each trip. Time passes so slowly there, and the empty fields that used to look barren, now feel like rest from the busy, blaring, neon life that most of us inhabit.
We've spent whole days out there, roaming around the back roads, taking pictures and poking through abandoned places, passing by the tractors plowing up the fields and the dirt devils, waving back to all the country folk who always have a smile and a wave for passers-by.
I'm coming to appreciate the big sky, the unobstructed view of the horizon, and the quiet simplicity of a long dusty road.
The wheat fields.....how I love them! Miles and miles of expansive fields open up the sky in ways that we "coast" people never experience. "The coast" is a term I heard an elderly man (from the old town) use when speaking of the western part of our state. He also mentioned that, after a prolonged visit to the coast for his wife's cancer treatment, he felt like kissing the ground when he returned home. ~ Mom
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