Just as a conversation starter since this form seems a little dead, how boring is your state? i live in central Oklahoma USA. It's a western state that is very long from is southernmost tip to the northwest. in that southern point, there are cypress swamps and rolling hills. as you heas north and west you cross the remains of several dying mountain ranges that are now just called hills. lots of mixed forrests and grasslands. this is cattle and oil country for the most part. by the tim you get to Oklahoma City, you have found out that yu are in the middle of the Great Plains (they are not actually flat, just not hilly enough to be called mountainous) also in the middle of Tornado Alley being one of the regions most prone to these weather phenomena. there are museums, celebrating American Indians and the old west, cattle trails, one notable memorial of a catastrophic application of prejudicial hatred, (the Murrah Federal Building bombing memorial) a rather nice municipal rose garden and a number opf pretty lakes and parks. from here, keep going west and north, the land starts to change. the hills get longer and higher, still the plains but you can tell you are going higher now. fewer trees, fewer lakes and streams, and more cattle. this is open grassland and if you go far enough you even find open cattle ranges where there are no fences and you need to watch for cows on the roads. the farther west you go you start to wonder if the road will ever end. it's lonely, but the skies and the air and your mind start to clear a bit. you see sage and ragweed out here. less and less grows and you start to get the idea that this is a hard place to live. less cultivation, the same cows, and little towns that are few and far between. one of the last stops is Guymon. this is a "normal" town, thye have the usual assortment of stores and services, but the air has a bite that stings your eyes and nose. the days seem brighter out here with few clouds and the high altitude, but it's time to get another jug of water and press westward again. little towns whose names seem like they belong in a western novel, Goodwell, Balko, Beaver, Keyes, Wheeless, Felt, Griggs, and finally another notable town, Boise City. Boise City is a good place to get gas and water becasue you wonlt see a lot more of that for a while. we are headed to another wild west town, Kenton, and Black Mesa. Black Mesa is a plateau that is the remnants of a huge and ancient volcanic erruption, so big it extends into parts of Colorado and Kansas. We are not far from either of those states out here, and if you could drive straight south you could get to Texas in an hour or so. Black Mesa is also kno for archealogical digs and a lot of fossils have been found up here as well as artifacts representign a number of western indian tribes that seemed to trave through here a lot but didn't like the area well enough to stay. There are a few man-made lakes out here that stay full most years, one in the publicly accessible portion of the lower mesa is a state park and it is surrounded by high bluffs and you cna sit on those bluffs and photograph eagles diving through the valley across the narrow lake catching fish in the water and snakes, lizards, and rodents on the dry banks. moving west there is evidence of a human culture that was once a lot bigger. whether it was climate changes, economic changes or if people are just not as tough as the settlers that were out here around 120 years ago. the ruins of old milk houses, buildings whoe purpose is unknown made of mud bricks and the walls starting to crumble. there are some sod houses and dugouts as well that would never meet a modern building code but served western settlers in the years of westward expansion. windmills and telephone poles are the dominant feather out here. and even the windmills look tired and lonely. most of them were used to pump water form deep wells at one time. Wells that are now dry or so long abandonned that the windmills that were supposed to keep stock watering tanks full have stopped working because of neglect of failure. by the time you get to the top of the mesa, you are almost a mile high, 4973 feet above sea level. even the sage seems to be breathing hard out here. between the dryness, and the altitude and the skies so blank that they make you wonder where they went and when they will be back, this is one lonesome outpost. on the edge of the plateau, you can look back east and feel like the hazy distance is only a few miles away, almost like you could see Oklahoma City if that constant pall of dust and the shimmering hot air were not blocking the view.
This is where i live. The artists and the poets don't live here anymore, but you can look around a bit and identify bits and pievces of the old west that blur together an you can feel the past in the now. we donlt have the excitement or all the tourist attracitons of a lot of states wit a longer history of civilization. we dontl have a lot of big business or big public works projects like some of the more developed western states. We don't miss those things either because we have the gifts of time, and roots, and wings. hisotry is a wonderful thing to learn if you learn from it. us Okies don't have to spend a lot of time dwelling on history as an academic pursuit, we live in history and have never been removed from it. If you get bored wherever you are, or worn out from killing yourself to keep up with all the activity and pressure where you are, stop by sometime when you have a couple of weeks and a comfortable car and live a little history. feel time slow down enough your spirit can catch up to your body and be whole again.
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