While travelling across America one of the things that struck me most was quite how big this place is. Yes I know that shouldn’t really be a surprise but in between the towns there’s a lot of nothing. Really a lot. I mean hundreds of miles of prairies where there is no mobile phone coverage, no internet access and no decent coffee (Not even Starbucks).
It is a strange feling because in the UK or even most of Western Europe it is almost impossible to drive more than 40 miles or so without hitting a town. Here you can drive for a day and barely see signs of civilisation.
I didn’t care much formuch of the Minnesota I saw (one you’ve seen one flat, grassy landscape then you’ve pretty much covered them all). There was the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic HIghway we followed for aaaages. There’s just nothing there. I recall in my dim and distant memories of watching Little house on the Prairie” on TV absolutely nothing ever happened. I don’t think much has changed today. After a many hours of this tedious terrain I saw a sign that said “Sod House on the Prarie”. I couldn’t have agreed more *
*although subsequently this turned out to be a house made using an ancient sod based building technique.