The Drive
Who would have thought a 22 hour drive across the mighty Midwest would be so eventful? We took off bright and early Saturday morning, our eventual goal was Tucson, AZ. The drive started off as most typical Nebraska drives do: miles and miles of newly planted cornfields. It was all so nice and peaceful, so early in the morning. Once we hit Kansas and Oklahoma, the scenery changed to "amber waves of grain". Wheat fields as far as the eye could see. It was windy, so the fields rippled like an ocean. Windmills spun at a chaotic rate as the 50 mph winds blew us all over the road. We drove through many ghost towns. Buildings all boarded up, junk heap cars abandoned, sad farming towns, and homes that were beyond liveable. I would have committed suicide if I had ever lived in one of these depressing towns. The 2nd day of driving had completely different scenery. Most of it was TX and New Mexico- miles and miles of barren prairie, with windmills scattered across the landscape. Wild antelope hung out in the afternoon sun, and Yucca spiked up all over the place. As we drove across the desert, a thin, white landscape began to appear. White Sands! Glorious, white dunes just popped up in the middle of the boring, khaki desert landscape. A geological wonder, White Sands, NM was pretty neat. I got out of the car and climed atop the white dunes and looked for miles. Childen were literally sledding down the mighty dunes, thinking it must be similair to snow. HA! Back on the road, the sights of prickly pear cactus was as ever-familiar sight that told us Arizona was getting closer. We drove thru a place called Texas Canyon where the rock formations were amazing. Crazy shapes and huge boulders balanced delicately on thin shafts of rock. Way cool. The landscape treated us well on the 22 hour plight, and we ran parallel to one of Union Pacific's rail lines, so we saw plenty of trains and I was lucky enough to count the cars on a train that had all new grain cars, (96 of em) all in numbered sequential order, which was rare, according to my dad. No grafitti on those new cars! We finally arrived in Tucson and the mighty Saguaro cactus greeted us with open arms. Welcome to the desert!
