This Land is My Land

The other day my coworker asked me, in a serious sort of way, "Do you like Kansas?" I'm not sure exactly what he was hoping I'd say, but in a nutshell, yes. Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas... I love the area most commonly known as the Midwest, running over into the Great Plains, up to the foot of the mountains, dipping a bit into the Southwest. I love the fierce, flat beauty of the parts of the country that everyone else is pretty content to just fly over. I'm sure it's mostly because I've lived and grown up there, and if I'd been raised in the lush Northwest or the genteel Deep South I'd be singing their praises instead. But I wasn't and I'm not - I'm here to show a little love to America's Heartland.


Something extraordinary most people who've never driven through the area don't realize is how breathtakingly big the sky looks when unobstructed by hills and trees. I know Montana is "Big Sky Country" and to be fair I haven't been there. But I've driven through the Flint Hills of Kansas and the open prairie of North Texas and I am telling you, that sky is huge. From horizon to horizon, nothing but blue. And to watch a line of thunderheads advance across that open sky, slowly covering the landscape in shadow and rain... there's really nothing like it in the whole wide world.



Here's some other pictures online I found that made me think of all the natural beauty to be found in middle America.

Kansas Sunflowers

American Bison

The Flint Hills

Snowstorm

Tornado