My Journey to a Small Prairie Town

It was frightening in a way I never expected. All that space--huge sky and empty land as far as the horizon. In the city, I was always on guard for some predator. Always aware of where I was, who was around me, and what they were up to. Out on the prairie there didn't seem to be anyone anywhere. What an amazing sensation.

It was quiet in a way I never experienced before. No honking horns, no sirens blaring, no electronic signs screaming some commercial that stuck in my head for days. As I traveled down the State Highway, to my new job on the prairie, I slowed to view a flock (gaggle? herd?) of wild turkeys with their feathers shimmering blue-green and fluffed by a breeze. They didn't even seem to notice me--just kept clucking (cackling?) alongside the road.

Rolling fields, dotted with flat-topped buttes, kept my eyes wandering off the empty road. An honest to goodness, official Department of Transportation sign was posted in the middle of one of those fields. It read: ROAD CLOSED. I would never have considered driving through a field. No city person I know would need that sign, but in the country, I have since been repeatedly told by local residents, things are done remarkably different.