Summer on the prairie

[bdbits]

No golden hour here, shot these out on a drive in the middle of a hot and windy summer day.

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Prairie landscape by Bob Davis, on Flickr

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Prairie landscape by Bob Davis, on Flickr

 

[AlwaysOnAuto]

^^^Whenever I'd travel cross country, I'd always try to imagine myself as a pioneer, seeing vistas like these for the first time, and wonder what it must have been like for them.
Thanks for taking me back to those trips Bob.

 

[bdbits]

You're welcome.

Funny, I sometimes think the same way even when not far from home. I often wonder how they made it. Yet it must've been quite the sight to see endless waves of grass as far as you could see in every direction. It was described at the time to be like watching an ocean. Just about the only trees then were along creeks and rivers. In fact, in the second image there is a creek in the foreground you cannot quite see where those scrubby trees are, and I believe that far distant line of trees on the horizon is along the Missouri river, just south of one of the few remaining old growth river bottom forests (now a state park). The first image has some obvious tree rows planted by the farmers, which only came into vogue after the depression / drought years of the 1930s.

 

[AlwaysOnAuto]

I always wondered what they thought when they first could make out the Rockies after so many days crossing the plains. How they found their way over/thru those mountains is beyond me. It really gives me an appreciation for our Interstate Highway system that lets us travel without really having to think about it.