I truly think that some explorer from the days of the old west was the one to add the word “vast” to Webster. Crossing Iowa today and then entering South Dakota this afternoon was an amazing ride. When Ed told me yesterday that it’s nothing for a farmer out here to own 10,000 acres, my brain couldn’t quite comprehend that….having grown up on a 125 acre farm. But after seeing how “vast” this territory is, it is easy to see how one could own a large chunk of land and it not be a big deal. Our family farm of 125 acres would fit in the backyard of some of these family farms out here. Corn fields and cattle ranchers were in plentiful supply. Boomer got really excited every time he saw a horse, cow or any animal on 4 feet for that matter. Perhaps it summoned up his ancestral herding instincts to go round them up and bring them in from the north forty.
It’s official…this afternoon we became South Dakotans ! Went to the small town of Vermillion and in the basement of the courthouse there, we turned in our PA drivers licenses and obtained our SD ones. Mighty pretty ones at that….a background of Mount Rushmore behind all the official information. We’ve stopped for the night in Vermillion and tomorrow we’re going to take in the Corn Palace, in Mitchell, SD and then go further west to the Badlands and the legendary Wall Drug. I couldn’t help but reflect on history (as we saw signs for the Lewis and Clark trail) that it must have been an exhausting trip, in those days, for travelers making their way west by horse or stagecoach. It seems to take forever to get to the next horizon by car, let alone try and do it on horseback or in a stagecoach. People with amazing fortitude and tenacity and a will to see what lay beyond that “vastness” forged this great nation.
p.s. Suzy had surgery at 3 p.m. today, to remove her gallbladder, and came through it fine.
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