in the morning .. reflections

This is Emily writing now. While David enjoys the big picture .. Rushmore, Badlands, I'm finding this time around that I'm enjoying the detail! A highlight for me yesterday was finding some lovely flowers along the way. We stopped so that I could look at them .. a whole "field" of small white flowers that looked like little petunias almost .. then to my extreme delight, mixed among them were small cactii in BLOOM!! The yellow flowers were translucent and waxy looking, but oh, so delicate! What a treat. Of course, my camera was clicking .. but wait, off in the distance, on the other side of the road, I heard squeaking, not unlike guinea pigs? mice? baby kittens? .. hardly, here. So I went to investigate and discovered a whole colony of prairie dogs, on alert at their doorsteps, warning each other of my presence!!

Upon reflection, I think those minutes spent out there in the middle of nowhere, without a sound except for the prairie dog warnings, were the best part of yesterday. Don't get me wrong, it was great to see Rushmore and the Badlands again, too.

I love "just driving" and looking. There is so much to see, whether its on the plains or in the hills. Colour, effects of sun and cloud at different times of the day, a dozen young deer at the side of the road where we navigated a hairpin turn, the occasional bird, sweeping plains from one horizon to another, abandoned homesteads, farmers cutting hay in 100 acre (?) fields .. it would take too long to describe it all in words. I'm so glad for my digital camera .. each picture is worth a thousand words.