Day
18
Monday,
July 9th
based
on the drive on I-80
Change of
Scenery
Rolling along the interstate from Missouri
and through Nebraska was pretty, oddly not at all what I thought it would be
like. Yes Nebraska was flat but there were trees everywhere and the interstate
followed the path of the North Platte River. There were little towns off the
interstate about every ten to twelve miles. Guess that must have been the
distance that the pioneer wagons could travel in one day. Oddly, there were
very little services off the interstate exits and once I thought I would nearly
run out of gas before finding a town off the interstate that did have gas.
These places are small, most with less than two-thousand in population.
After I-80 split from I-70 I found the scenery
to be abruptly different. It was extremely odd. The green grasses gave way to
browns. The corn fields to grain fields. The trees were sparse, mostly only in
the cities off in the distances. And hills and bluffs began sprouting up in the
landscape. This was very similar to the high desert of New Mexico and not at
all like the bread basket of eastern Nebraska and Missouri and Kansas. It
amazes me, landscape I mean. I’m a professional artist by trade and I love to
paint landscapes.
I began to drift and realized I needed a
break, Cheyenne was still quite a distance off my nose. I also decided that a
gas stop would be a good idea. I began looking for exit signs that also
reflected gas stations. Finally I found one and headed into a very small town,
population 545. Passing the high school, the one church, and quite a few houses
I finally found the gas station that was also an auto garage and small
convenience store. Gas was cheap enough. I wondered where the folks here went
to get basic household supplies and food though since this little shop had
nothing like that. I thanked the lady for my soda and bag of chips and then
decided to take a quick spin through the town.
About thirty homes or so, most of them
mobile homes, the school, the church, right at the train tracks were grain
silos and equipment for pouring the grain into train cars for transport across
the United States. No movie theater, no bowling alley, no skating rink. Wow,
what do these kids do to entertain themselves? I am a city girl, born and raised,
with rows of houses stacked upon each other so tight that you could smell the
cigar wafting through your neighbor’s window. This, this is absolutely foreign
to me.
I contemplated the rural life as I left the
small town in my rear view mirror and headed back upon the interstate towards
Cheyenne. Then the though struck me. All my life I have painted the city
skylines that I have grown up in. I pulled off the interstate again, drove
right into the next town that I came across and pulled out my easel and paints.
This, this was the purpose of the westward trip; to capture the rural life
through the eyes of an urbanite. I set up and began to paint the few
structures, the minimal trees, and the vastness of the highlands prairie that
stretched before me. It would kill my schedule but right at this moment I
didn’t care. Schedules are a thing of the city and this, this is the country.
Toss the schedule aside and just be.
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