All the way to Platte, SD.

Oh I had so much to say and it eludes me!  Maybe it’s my numb fingers.  In the past two days, we’ve traversed the seasons.  We went from 91 degree Cincinnati, delicious sunburn weather to winter in South Dakota, hats and scarves, fingers like molasses when rolling up the tent.  I was kind of expecting the weather, but no one warned me about the wind.  Wind that pulls stakes out of the ground, and requires fly re-staking in the middle of the night so that the noise of the flap slapping the tent doesn’t keep me awake.  The whole tent moves.

The landscape here is so vast.  And it goes forever.  There is some rolling, but you can see for miles.  What I love though is the color of the soybean fields as the flowers dry.  It’s an alive mustard yellow, less burnt looking, but with such richness.  The fields are beautiful.  Nick has been educating me on crop variety of South Dakota.  Which is to say that there is not much variety, but it is different from the corn dominated fields of Iowa and Illinois.  In Minnesota we saw fields of wheat, which I can’t say I’ve seen in this part of the season, when it’s drying before harvest.  It also has a distinct color; you can almost see the health in it, it looks like food.  And here in South Dakota, there is still a lot of corn, there are complete seas of soybeans, and lots of cows in pastures.  Trees are islands that are mostly situated around towns or houses. We haven’t seen any high density feed lots, which is a relief.  I thought for sure we’d be seeing tons of sad cows and pigs in corrals.  Now I’m wondering if some of the fields we’ve been seeing are flax, since according to the little grocery store we stopped at in Canisota, SD, is a major local crop.   There is also so much flooding.  The cattails are the only way to tell if a pond is supposed to be in the middle of a field, or if it is an unintentional temporary flood pond. Yesterday on our drive here, we passed through some major weather, making us really wonder about how well we’d do at camping.  Much to our pleasure, our plastic ground cover sheet was a really great purchase, and kept the tent completely dry.  It did take a while to warm up, but once our sleeping bags had acclimated to our bodies, they were toasty.  Nick even started sweating.  

Mom you would have been so proud of the “dinner” we made last night.  As we were leaving Theresa’s house a week ago today, we decided to take most of our food items we’d brought from our kitchen in Chicago.  So in our car right now, we are carrying plastic containers full of quinoa, mung beans, lentils, green split peas, orzo, millet, wheat berries, wild rice, fresh garlic, and a few other delights.  As the sun went down in windy, chilly, Lake Vermillion Recreational Park, South Dakota, we made a grain and bean based soup that warmed our bodies up so well, that our brains started working again.  I cooked up lentils and green split peas, which offer a nice texture.  When they still had a bit of crunch, I added quinoa and orzo, knowing that the the quinoa would take about 10 minutes to unfurl completely, and the orzo can’t be over cooked.  At the same time, I added a few dollops of Trader Joes tomato sauce (Mom tip) to flavor to beans and to make a tasty broth.  It worked perfectly.  Pepper took away the blandness, and we filled up on healthy grains and legumes.  

Check out our house tent and the beginnings of dinner.  This was also just before the battery died, so you'll have to imagine the grains, legumes melding together.  

I almost forgot the punch line.  After the first bowl of my soup concoction, we started talking about breakfast, and how the ice had melted already in the cooler.  One of the items in the cooler that actually called for refrigeration (we all know that blocks of cheese last forever and are better when warm:) is the grotta (remember my soliloquy on Cincinnati grotta?).  I have made Nick a complete grotta believer and now we look for excuses to add it to anything.  Fried up grotta on our mini cast iron skillet was absolutely delicious added to the grain legume soup!  We were satisfied and happy, and less cold than before.  

Lake Vermillion, where we camped, source of much wind! 

Goodbye Lake Vermillion. 

Today the sun is out, and the cold is dissipating as we drive South on 37 to meet up with 44, which is apparently the scenic and more lovely route, according to our friend Jim McGovern.  We will take 44 west to the Badlands, driving through a few reservations on the way.  Driving through all this vastness, I can’t help but conjure up and have so much empathy for the early settlers and homesteaders out here.  It’s still so empty, which makes it easy to imagine what it was like hundreds of years ago.  This is an area rich with Native American history, I love let my mind wander and wonder; to think about what it was like when.... In order to survive well anywhere, but especially in places like this and further west, one really has to be in tune with the earth, the land, the seasons, life is so necessarily intertwined with nature.  It makes me a little bit sad for most of us, me included, who are so disconnected from the sources of our food, from hard work negotiating relationships with nature, from sun and fresh air and open spaces.  

RIght now we are catching up on writing and email at a little coffee shop in Platte, SD, before we head to the Badlands.  They have organic treats and fancy coffees for just $2.50, we can afford ourselves a sweet coffee since we had beans and grotta for dinner and breakfast.  

Hazlenut Latte, mmm.  Nick had White Chocolate Symphony= a dream. 

Panoramic view of the cute and sparse Platte Main street.

We've got to get back on the road, 4.5 hours till the Badlands!