Theodore Roosevelt said, “It was here that the romance of my life began”. I’m incredibly proud to be from North Dakota, even though I’ve lived in Kansas for nearly 20 years now. I absolutely love going home! I detest the drive. It’s approximately 800-miles from my home in Kansas to my parents in rural North Dakota. I take all the po-dunk highways home in a little under 14 hours.
While I complain horrendously about the drive, it’s cheaper than flying, and by the time I get to a major airport, have a layover in Denver, and land two-hours from where I grew up in North Dakota, I might as well have taken the scenic route anyway. And boy, is it scenic.
You won’t see a prettier country than that of western-central Nebraska and South Dakota, and western North Dakota. The wide-open skies seem to allow you to breathe easier and feel a bit closer to peace. They also make you realize how vast the land is.
Some say it’s boring, and it mostly is. It’s also relaxing to not have big city distractions. By far my favorite road to travel though, is the gravel road from my high school hometown to my parents’. Seeing the buttes from the top of a gravel road hill is a sight that everyone should see at least once in their lifetime. Those gravel roads are the ones they write country songs about.
There’s something to be said about watching harvest in full swing, passing fields of freshly raked and baled hay, and watching the bright colors of alfalfa, sunflowers, and wild prairie flowers growing along the ditches, not to mention the wildlife of deer, antelope, pheasant, quail, and various hawks chasing jack rabbits. Everyone that you meet on the road waves and smiles.
While home recently, my oldest son got some windshield time in, and got to drive my dad’s old truck. He’s since decided he’s in love and cut a deal with Grandma to buy it. (I’m still not sure how we’re going to get it back to Kansas.) We drove that old truck all over the gravel roads near the farm, sat on top of the hill watching neighbors cut wheat, and stopped at the church cemetery to have a talk with dad. To see your teenage son be at peace is amazing. To be able to share the gravel roads I grew up on with him was, for me, heaven on earth. That’s what life should be about. The time you take to slow down and just drive. So if you’re ever doubting your sanity, your place in life, or the place you live, just find yourself a gravel road with a view.
