Page 28 - USA ROAD TRIP SUMMER of 2000

The land is obviously less arable as the farms are further and

further apart the further west we go. It’s drier and there are
stretches of open pasture and small lakes taking up the land. The

farm homes and barns are not as large and prosperous looking

either. There are more beef cattle and no signs of milking. The
farmhouses do not have the acre or more of mowed, manicured

lawns that we saw throughout Wisconsin and Minnesota. Is this
the result of a lack of leisure for its care or lack of cultural

importance of this type of landscaping?

We have also left the land of the rural skyscrapers of silos
attached to the barns. In their place are gigantic, freestanding

grain elevators. They can be seen for miles and fill the horizon.

Trains of great length race the automobiles on parallel tracks off in
the distance as they carry the grains from the elevators to the big

rivers to be loaded on barges. From there, most of the grains end
up in the distribution centers of the Mississippi River Basin.

We stopped in Jamestown to see the Bison. They’re a tourist

attraction – not free roaming. One of them was all white. Strange
looking beast with a brown calf of her own. We had our picture

taken with a massive statue of a Bison just like the tourists that we

are.

The further west we go, the hotter it gets. A fellow we talked to at
Jamestown was traveling from Idaho towards Minnesota. He

snickered slightly when he informed us that it was 105 degrees
around Teddy Roosevelt National Park where we will be hiking and

biking over the next few days.

And we thought we were leaving Florida to get away from the

summer heat!

28