EAST-WEST

When I started smashing into tumbleweeds, some tall as my car's hood, I knew I was back in the West. It's a different place than the East.

I crossed a big chunk of the continent today -- half of Iowa, all of Nebraska, a little piece of Wyoming, and down into Colorado -- and the best thing was seeing this ferruginous hawk, burnished copper and black in late-winter sunshine, sitting on a fence-post alongside the freeway.

I-80 follows the Platte River, current home of sandhill cranes, white pelicans, and lots of other waterfowl. As I passed, I silently thanked some of the folks I used to know who helped keep the river's ecosystem relatively intact. That's where I saw the ferruginous hawk. It was the 146^th bird species I've seen on this trip. My first was a house wren singing in my backyard in Oregon, the morning I left, 25 days ago. The 100^th was a gray catbird, mewing in Florida underbrush on the Atlantic Coast.

I started today in Iowa City, and drove like an arrow shot due west, nearly 800 miles. In Iowa, last year's corn stubble covered the landscape, ready for a spring shave and planting. Across Nebraska, vast herds of jet-black cattle grazed manicured grasslands, echoing a time when countless bison feasted on native grasses.

Late yesterday, cruising west through Illinois and eastern Iowa, I was surprised by the beauty of a landscape I remembered as nothing but flat, green cornfields. This time the bare, late-winter croplands were shrouded in fog and rain. Soft, rolling hills were lost in the horizon as low clouds crowded the sky. Distant farmsteads pixilated in the mist. Bare trees stood as outlined-sentinels, in copses, and woodlots.

Iowa City is where I spent the evening with Audrey, a close friend from another life. We shared memories and stories of our families. She told me that people in Iowa are kind. She's there by way of Johns Hopkins, California, etc. We all seem to have complicated lives. Holding up the mirror of the past, we marveled at how our lives turned out, and the weirdness of crossing paths again after 38 years.

It's what this road trip has been all about -- renewing friendships and sharing memories of past adventures, foibles, and accomplishments. But after nearly four weeks, I feel like a sponge that can't hold much more.

Yet not quite full, which brings me to Fort Collins, Colorado, to spend a day with Becky and John. Recent migrants from Michigan, they seem to love their new home in the West. As I watch the sun sink behind snow-capped mountains, I can see why.

  

Yesterday: MY REARVIEW MIRROR

http://wayneaschmidt.blogspot.com/2018/04/my-rearview-mirror.html