Showing posts with label why I love the prairie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label why I love the prairie. Show all posts

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Time travel on I-70

All my childhood I felt that I had been born too late. I should have been a pioneer girl! When we traveled across the vastness of Kansas, from Os-land to Denver, sweet "Momma Ruth" would read to us from the "Little House on the Prairie" books. It was impossible to get a radio station and something was needed to entertain us on the 12 hour journey to the "little pink house" of Grandma and Grandpa King. As "Momma Ruth" read, I gazed out upon the prairie and wondered what it would be like to travel by http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-oldwest/CoveredWagon1886-500.jpgwagon with the sound of the wind moving through the grasses. I thought about the what the world would look like without telephone poles (that dates me) or highways or fences. I wanted to be a pioneer girl! I still feel that way when we cross the Flint Hills or when we head west on I-70. I still want to live in some remote place and feel the vastness and the solitude, like Laura felt. I want to build up a homestead and work the land. It won't ever happen but I still want to be a pioneer on the prairie. I love the prairie in the summer when the sky is purple against the golden hills. I love it in the winter when the naked trees are like black lace against the sky. I love it in the spring when the hills are bright, bright green. Most of all I love the prairie because seeing the horizon, 360 degrees, and the edge of the prairie fading to a misty, pale gray where the earth meets the sky makes me feel happy, peaceful and safe.