Day 4: The Prairie Sea

Day 4:  The Prairie Sea
Sept. 14 2017

(Circle the Bay Part Two)

541 miles in 10 hours

(Total 1835 miles in 40 hours)

I drove from the Comfort Inn of Laramie Wyoming to the Two Rivers State Recreational Area outside of Omaha Nebraska.  I set up the tent after dark using the headlights from the Prius to illuminate the luxurious green grass of the campground.

To make driving exciting it helps to realize how amazing it really is. I am piloting a vehicle that flies inches from the ground on four rotating cushions of air.  A magic carpet that I have to keep between two lines on the road that mark my lane. You fly in close precision with other passenger and cargo vehicles, over hill and dale.  This is made even easier by the Prius's automated cruise control that can detect the lane you're in and the car or truck in front of you to slow down as needed.  

And today I flew my car over the wide open seas of the American prairie.  On the downhill slope from the Rockies Mountains, the hills and valley roll on and on like a windy sea, with occasional "whitecaps" breaking out in outcropping left by the eroding power of rivers.

I realized I had a need to cross this entire span before resting on the shores of the Missouri River (or its tributary).  I felt awed by all that open land, dotted occasionally by four-legged grass feeders that seem less dangerous than sharks and crocodiles, but are they?  I wondered why I felt the need to cross in a hurry, given land is so much easier to traverse than water.

But is it? With a boat I could go anywhere across a real sea, but here with my low-flying plane I can only go where a guideway has been built for the most part, though off-road is always possible if not advisable.  And there is little shelter out there on the prairie.

When I went to University of Minnesota my dorm mate was from the wide open spaces of North Dakota, and felt hemmed in by the mixed forest of eastern Minnesota.  As I drove through Nebraska, I-80 eventually follows the Platte River valley, which has an abundance of water compared to the surrounding plains.   First the trees, and then the farms showed up.  Knowing the land was cultivated made me feel at home, safe and sheltered.  And what does that mean?  I'm a camper in California?

Laramie River, a Platte River Tributary

Platte River Tributaries 

Wyoming State Capitol Under Construction

Rolling Hills Capped Rock Outcroppings

New Concrete Section of I-80, Hay Used For Construction

Weird Metallic Arthropod Lurking in the Corn

Album of The Day:  Magic Potion by The Black Keys

I decided to choose an album name that started with the letter M, and chose Magic Potion before I knew it was a Black Keys album.  This albums pre-dates their huge arena filling success, but it shows there elements of fuzzy bluesy guitar and drums.  But with this album I found myself drawn to the simpler slower songs because there I could find something I hadn't heard that much of since they became big.