A few weeks ago, I wrote about my upcoming elk hunting trip to
Colorado. Well, I'm back with more than 4,100 miles passing under our
vehicle!
A lot happened on the hunt itself, which I will get to soon, but the first issue when taking or planning a trip like this is the miles . . . and the miles . . . and the miles. Slightly over 2,000 miles in each direction and, as I've told many of my friends who have never driven across this great country of ours, you don't know how big it is until you get behind the wheel and drive it.
If you think that driving across New York from Albany to the Pennsylvania border is a chore, you ain't seen nothing! Once in Pennsylvania it takes less than an hour of driving before you reach Ohio. Once beyond Cleveland, there is a change that becomes noticeable, referred to as "corn fields." These fields continue for a few hours until you suddenly drive into Indiana and you realize that all you see is corn fields.
Another few hours and along comes Illinois - you think of nothing more than Chicago just like people from across the country think of nothing other than "the city" when we mention New York. Oh! How guilty we all are of pre-judging this state. The corn fields not only continue, they get bigger and bigger.
Then comes Iowa. Three hundred and eight miles of corn. On and on and on it goes interrupted only by more corn and huge silos waiting for the next harvest. For almost eight hours, all we saw was field after field of corn bracketed by the Mississippi River on one end and the Missouri River on the other. And just when you think there can't be any more corn fields, along comes....
Nebraska! Four hundred and fifty eight miles of.....you got it! corn fields.
You can't help but think "what the h--- do we do with all this corn?" Every once in a while a town about the size of the Wilton Mall parking lot would pop up close enough to the interstate highway to warrant someone putting a sign out near the road informing us that hidden somewhere the other side of one of these fields, there are people living in houses. Our only interest was if there was a gas station or not.
I'm convinced that corn fields in these states are not measured in acres, they are measured in miles or maybe minutes as in how many minutes does it take to drive past one at 75 miles an hour. Some fields we saw were big enough to place the entire city of Saratoga Springs within it and have enough room left over to have a football field, soccer field, baseball field and maybe an airport or two.
Nice people, great people live out in these "fly over" states. They welcomed us with open arms and everyone treated us with a certain level of curiosity. I think they wanted to know what in the world we were doing out there more than anything else or they just wanted to know that people from New York spoke the same language they did and not German or Italian or French or some other language from Europe.
Food along the way was equally great as long as you liked......corn or corn meal or corn bread or something made from ......corn. What surprised me even more than all the corn was the lack of cows. I have to temper this by pointing out that we couldn't see very far beyond the corn stalks, but I would have thought that we would have seen far more dairy and beef cattle than we did. Something has to justify all that corn.
Anyway, we did actually slip an elk hunting trip into all of these miles, and I'll be sure to share that with you next week. However, I wanted to be sure to let you know that if you are planning a trip of any kind for any reason in or through this part of the country, you should be sure to bring your camera and...... some melted butter!
See you outdoors!
You can reach Dick at totinorj@yahoo.com
If you think that driving across New York from Albany to the Pennsylvania border is a chore, you ain't seen nothing! Once in Pennsylvania it takes less than an hour of driving before you reach Ohio. Once beyond Cleveland, there is a change that becomes noticeable, referred to as "corn fields." These fields continue for a few hours until you suddenly drive into Indiana and you realize that all you see is corn fields.
Another few hours and along comes Illinois - you think of nothing more than Chicago just like people from across the country think of nothing other than "the city" when we mention New York. Oh! How guilty we all are of pre-judging this state. The corn fields not only continue, they get bigger and bigger.
Then comes Iowa. Three hundred and eight miles of corn. On and on and on it goes interrupted only by more corn and huge silos waiting for the next harvest. For almost eight hours, all we saw was field after field of corn bracketed by the Mississippi River on one end and the Missouri River on the other. And just when you think there can't be any more corn fields, along comes....
Nebraska! Four hundred and fifty eight miles of.....you got it! corn fields.
You can't help but think "what the h--- do we do with all this corn?" Every once in a while a town about the size of the Wilton Mall parking lot would pop up close enough to the interstate highway to warrant someone putting a sign out near the road informing us that hidden somewhere the other side of one of these fields, there are people living in houses. Our only interest was if there was a gas station or not.
I'm convinced that corn fields in these states are not measured in acres, they are measured in miles or maybe minutes as in how many minutes does it take to drive past one at 75 miles an hour. Some fields we saw were big enough to place the entire city of Saratoga Springs within it and have enough room left over to have a football field, soccer field, baseball field and maybe an airport or two.
Nice people, great people live out in these "fly over" states. They welcomed us with open arms and everyone treated us with a certain level of curiosity. I think they wanted to know what in the world we were doing out there more than anything else or they just wanted to know that people from New York spoke the same language they did and not German or Italian or French or some other language from Europe.
Food along the way was equally great as long as you liked......corn or corn meal or corn bread or something made from ......corn. What surprised me even more than all the corn was the lack of cows. I have to temper this by pointing out that we couldn't see very far beyond the corn stalks, but I would have thought that we would have seen far more dairy and beef cattle than we did. Something has to justify all that corn.
Anyway, we did actually slip an elk hunting trip into all of these miles, and I'll be sure to share that with you next week. However, I wanted to be sure to let you know that if you are planning a trip of any kind for any reason in or through this part of the country, you should be sure to bring your camera and...... some melted butter!
See you outdoors!
You can reach Dick at totinorj@yahoo.com
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