Great Plains
I just finished reading "Great Plains" by Ian Frazier. After pretty much reading, and reviewing, Jersey history for the last few years, I wanted to broaden my horizon. The mini review on the front of the book compares the author to John McPhee, who wrote a really good book on the Pine Barrens, so I figured it was an omen that I would like this book. It did not disappoint.
Now, of course, I want to get in my Jeep and drive across the plains. I want to visit the site of Sitting Bull's cabin. I want to go back to Keota and Buckingham, in the Pawnee National Grassland in Colorado, and take in the surroundings again. There is something incredibly powerful when you look across the plains and see nothing - just miles and miles of grass blowing out to the horizon. When you're the only person around for miles. As much as I love the Pine Barrens, you can never get that far away from everything. Even in the middle of a cedar swamp, surrounded by hummocks and briers so fierce that you need a machete to cut through them, there's always something to remind you of humanities presence. A mylar balloon or a long abandoned tree stand loudly exclaims to the "explorer" that there's no uncharted territory to be found.
Frazier explains that the land and resources in the plains were so abundant - and cheap - that it didn't make sense to tear down the old and replace with the new. Unlike Manhattan, where buildings go up, live their lives, become obsolete, and get demolished, the plains holds structures, towns, that outlived their usefulness years ago and now just bake, unused, under the sun. In Jersey, the ghost towns we have only still exist because they're on protected land. If the Pines weren't protected, Harrisville or Martha would probably house a Wal-Mart and a Super Stop & Shop. In Jersey we force our conservation - in the plains it happens because it's just not worth it to build.
Some people may only see the plains as a lonely stretch of land between New York and San Francisco. From Google Earth, the Oklahoma Panhandle is wormwood, defined by thousands of green circles made by center pivot irrigation. It's a landscape so unlike what I'm used to in Jersey. It's an amazing place. This book makes me want to see more of it.