We headed out of Fargo today in the brand new Lucerne. I was the first driver of the day. We headed south on I-29, a flat, straight and wide open highway with a speed limit of 75 mph. There were times on the road when I could count the number of vehicles both ahead and behind me on one hand. No matter how many times I think about it, how many times I revisit this place, the flatness of this land always strikes me. It’s so open, so free, so vulnerable. In some weird way it is such a relief for me. There were scattered rain clouds today in the huge sky visible for miles and miles and miles.
The crops look healthy; corn, sugar beets with the wheat and the hay being cut or already harvested. I love the pitch black of the soil here and the amber color of what’s left of the wheat.
At Exit 1 we stopped at Dakota Magic, a casino in the middle of nowhere. It has its own water tower to service the casino and the hotel. There is literally nothing else there except crops. After making my $10 donation (which took me about 15 minutes) I walked up on the overpass which spans I-29 and could see, to the south the sign announcing entry to South Dakota: “South Dakota, Great Faces, Great Places” and to the north the sign welcoming you to North Dakota.
Once in South Dakota the place the glacier stopped is obvious. Rolling hills and lakes begin to appear and the sky gets smaller. Even so, the hills are not so large. The road is straight, without traffic and the scattered rain clouds can still be spotted for miles. Love that about the prairie. We also crossed the Continental Divide, the line that separates the north from the south. Wish I had spotted the sign earlier so I could have had my photo taken there. Luckily we have the geography specialist with us who schooled us on the three Continental Divides in the USA!