The Great Plains

 

South Dakota with a thunderstorm imminent

I am a mountain man. I grew up in the mountains. I climb mountains, take pictures of mountains, and generally seek out mountains of all shapes and sizes to live my life among. I don’t know why topography is so important to me, but I need to make my home in the mountains. However, I absolutely love driving on the plains. As most Americans over the age of four know, there is a large swath in the middle of America that was once an ancient seabed, stretching over a thousand miles east to west and several thousand miles north to south. This region is called the Great Plains. And they sure are great…

Most mountain or ocean dwellers like me often disregard the Great Plains as endlessly boring, utilitarian, uninterrupted wasteland that is simply a distance hurdle while traveling between the more interesting parts of the world. Whenever I talk to someone who has recently driven across the USA, invariably they will complain about the worst part of the journey; the endless fields and straight roads of the Great Plains. They may be bored out of their skulls, but for me, the Great Plains are the best part of the Trans-America roadtrip. 

I find the open space relaxing. I find the endless horizons to be calming. I love how there is so little traffic and so few distractions. Life has less tangents and complications among the prairies and fields. I love to watch the weather approach from hundreds of miles away, like I am seeing the future with my own eyes. My mind finds a calm state that is so rare in the heavily populated Northeast or the rambunctious mountain west. Ideas flow out of my brain, drifting into existence like tumbleweeds waiting to be captured. I can comfortably keep a notebook on the dashboard and write them down without worrying about jerking the steering wheel or going around a sharp curve. I can slow my heart rate and ponder for hours. 

Cocooned in my truck, I enjoy the mighty wind gusts that buffet my truck like invisible hands. Even when getting terrible gas mileage from a vicious head wind, I feel triumphant, like I am swimming upstream against the current on a journey somewhere. Crossing the Great Plains makes me feel like an adventurer, like I am going to new places, even if I know that I am going places I have been before. Maybe that is just baked into my psyche as an American; having learned since my early years about the explorers and pioneers who had to cross the plains headed west. But those early explorers crossed the plains for the same reason the chicken crossed the road, to get to the other side. I choose that route for the time spent on the plains. 

For most people that I talk to, the Great Plains are experienced as a hardship they must endure to reach the reward on the other side. I think of the slogan that life is a journey, not a destination. Most of the time, I don’t live up to that expectation; I am too busy hurtling through my life towards some unknown goal. But in the Great Plains, I can manage it. The journey across the Great Plains is the whole point. Sure, I am rewarded at the end of my crossing by reuniting friends and family, or arriving at home. But I revere the twenty hours of flat land that is my journey; a time when I can put away the problems that bother me because I am physically far away. Or, I can ruminate on them calmly, unable to escape my hurtling pod crossing the flatlands. 

        I admire the people who can tough out their lives in such a place. They have qualities of patience and endurance that most humans should envy and aspire to. I love passing through, but I am honest with myself. The relentless wind would drive me crazy. The humidity on the eastern side is suffocating. Particularly on the northern plains, the drifting snow is hellacious. It is not an easy land. But despite the hassles, I cherish the roadtrip. Every time I reach the edges, either the front ranges of the Rockies or the lush lowlands of the Mississippi River, I get nostalgic. While I am dodging traffic and making far too many turns on the steering wheel, I am unable to get lost in my quiet head space and have to greet the issues at hand. Thankfully, I am calm and collected after yet another passage across the Great Plains. I can’t wait to do it again sometime soon.