by Richard Seifried
Signal Hill Musings
October, 2009
Since my son-in-law and I recently finished our Lewis and Clark adventure, I have remained infatuated with what we know as the Great Plains. From the rolling, tree-splotched hills of the eastern prairie states to the junction with the Rocky Mountains, the land has fascinated me as never before.
Probably my reaction is due to the overwhelming greenery of the high plains grasslands, especially in areas like eastern Colorado, Kansas, and way up into Alberta, Canada. Almost daily rains allowed the new growth to rise up, free itself of mature brown stems, and propagate the land.
On our way home we drove eastward from the Rockies out on to the grasslands. At times, as far as we could see, there grew tall, emerald green grass, thousands of acres unblemished by roads or buildings. Absolutely flat. Few tree-choked ravines. Try as I did, I was unable to view the twenty or thirty miles from horizon to horizon and see a hint of the curvature of the earth – though I really wanted to. No churches. No fences. Just unbroken, flat grassland.
A thunderstorm rolling over the Great Plains in Nebraska
One could easily escape to an earlier time, perhaps two hundred years ago, when the same land was covered with tens of thousands of buffalo and elk, and wolves by the score.
In season, the land is splattered with wildflowers. Butterflies, red-winged black birds, and swallows, caressed by the wind, make the land seem to undulate with colorful wavering breezes.
My great grandfather became infatuated with the Great Plains. His adventures during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush resulted in his family moving to Nebraska, homesteading in a sod hut. That was just after the Civil War.
The harshness of below zero winters, roasting summer days, prairie fires, and incredibly hard work combined to hasten the death of my great grandmother, after which the Carey family returned to Ohio.
But the land had touched my grandfather, toughened him into the man that he became. I know I wouldn’t want to live out there. I have experienced the heat of the plains summers, the cold blizzards, the wind-swept winters. Just in little snippets – but enough to know that it wasn’t for me.
Still, seeing the Great Plains in 2009 thrilled me as it always does.
