Today Scout and I crossed the remainder of KS and into my home state of CO. Tonight we're staying in La Junta, which is not far from Rocky Ford where my mother was born and raised on the family farm. Unfortunately, because of the length of today's trip and the fact that I didn't think Scout could take one more minute in the car, I didn't get to go exploring for the old place. Instead I took Scout to a public park to throw his ball and release some of his pent-up energy and, wouldn't you know it, we weren't 5 minutes into the game when he heard thunder and immediately went into his panic mode. That was it for the ballplaying. Tomorrow should be a much shorter day, however, and I'm going to try again as the stress of the trip seems to be wearing on him.
KS was very interesting to cross. Immediately upon getting onto the interstate, I could see a huge wind farm in the distance. There must have been 60-75 of those gigantic turbines, all going in different rotations--even with their stark whiteness, they are almost sculptural and not as intrusive on the landscape as I might have imagined. When we turned off the interstate and onto a state highway (parts of which turned out to be on or near the old Santa Fe Trail), we encountered another one, around Dodge City I think. I also saw fields of sunflowers which were really pretty and all kinds of different birds, including a couple bald eagles and magpies. Still haven't encountered a meadowlark--that will be a sure indication that I'm in the West. I'm now in Mountain Daylight Time, too, which means that I'm 2 hours behind all of my friends in the East.
Tomorrow we head southwest to Ft. Garland, CO, and then south to Arroyo Hondo, where we should arrive by early afternoon. To say that this has been an interesting trip would be an understatement. We have gone from completely green MA to the semi-arid Great Basin of the center of the country and in many ways traced the path of my ancestors as they made their way across the country. Of couse, everything is different now in a multitude of ways, but it's still possible to catch glimpses of what it must have been like for those early pioneers.
I'm very much looking forward to becoming a New Mexican tomorrow and starting the next chapter in my life. This may be my last post for a while since I've not decided which internet provider to use.
Until then.....
