Americana

The drive west across most of Minnesota is like viewing scenes from Norman Rockwell paintings. Once leaving behind the trappings of the Twin Cities, the obnoxious drivers, and the incessant orange construction warning signs, the landscape smooths out. At first, there are gentle rolling hills with fenced fields, a few small clapboard country churches, and small towns trying to emulate the busy-ness of the giant city with a couple fast food places and Kwik Trips. And then the change, the land flattens out, with green spikes of new growth in the freshly furrowed ground. The grain elevators, the railroad tracks, the farmhouses - few and far between - surrounded by cottonwood trees over a hundred years old, harken back to simpler times. Weatherbeaten houses, the paint blasted off by the winds, line the few streets of places with names like Stewart, Danube, Bird Island. Old brick buildings from yesteryear dot the downtowns, some still with false fronts and a few with ornate cornices where roof met wall. It feels like hitching posts should be on the streets and buckboards on the highway instead of large semi trucks. A few new offerings, a large tractor company, a place called 212 Beef, a nice new hospital now stand along the road in the middle of the endless flat terrain. Progress? The turkey farm was hacked apart, a victim of bird flu a few years back. There are seed companies and a beet processing plant, all reflective of the importance of the farm in our history. White with blizzard-scoured snow or alight in a brilliant sunset, it’s Minnesota.

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