Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Through The Buggy Winders


North of Killdeer, ND on ND22 - you can see for miles, I'm tellin' ya.


The road started winding around and hey - big ol' hole coming up.


Starting down and the vista is opening up.

To the left.

To the right. At this point the road dropped into the Little Missouri River valley with a seven percent grade and a few tight turns, so I had my hands full.

Climbing out of the valley.


Into farm country - a field of mustard. It had been a while since the last time through here - and I'm not sure I've been up here at the start of summer. Lots of prairie hay being swathed and baled - even the ditches get baled up. The whole country is green, the cattle look fat and healthy, and the winter wheat looks good - it's still nearly a month away (I think).

I like this country in the summer. Winter? Not so much. But it's sure purdy when it's green, and the terrain is rugged and wild in spots. I guess I've got some farmer/stockman left in my blood.

My job takes me to quite a few different areas of the country, and lots of it is impressive in it's own right. For instance, the Ozarks are something to see. The Rockies are certainly grand and imposing. Utah is wild, stony and lonesome. Texas - well, it's a whole 'nother country - Amarillo has little in common with Houston. Palm trees, roadrunners and armadillos.

You can keep your big cities. The DFW complex, Houston, Denver, St. Louis, Chicago, Atlanta - you can keep 'em all. KC, Indy, OKC, Omaha, Des Moines - at least they're bearable.

Give me the open country.

4 comments:

Cedar View Paint Horses said...

Canola?

Jeffro said...

I'll bet you are right. I thought it might even be flax or something like that - they grow a lot of different specialty crops "up" there. I just figured it was mustard.

threecollie said...

Pretty country!

Anonymous said...

That really is beautiful. Thanks so much for sharing with those of us that don't get to travel this wonderful country.