Since the fall of 2006 I’ve been exploring the Xenaverse by surfing
around and visiting websites and blogs and talking with other Xenites at
forums, and by revisiting the show itself by occasionally viewing and
reviewing the DVD set FlamingStar sent me. But now that I’ve got my new
car, my new laptop — and plenty of time on my hands, having quit my
frakkin’ goram miserable stinkin’ job! — an entirely new way of
exploring our grand old ‘verse occurred to me. I made a road trip a
couple of weeks ago to visit a very dear Xenite friend of mine (Hiyer,
Lil Amazon!) and that’s when it hit me. No, not Lil Amazon and her
Amazin’ Gabazon Gabwhacker. Nope, it was, instead, an amazing and
scathingly brilliant idea that hit me: Why not make some road trips to
the ends of the Xenaverse (or at least, to parts of the country I’d love
an excuse to visit) and take photos as I go and blog the whole thing? :O
See, I told you it was an amazing and scathingly brilliant idea! Isn’t
it, though? I know!

In celebration of the Birth of the Idea for the Best Frakkin’ Goram Road
Trips in the Whole Frakkin’ Goram Known World, I thought I’d share with
you a little about the trip that started the whole thing. It was a dark
and stormy night, er, um, actually it was daylight, and it wasn’t
stormy, but it was flat. Amazingly flat. Gloriously and outrageously
flat. Frakkin’ Goram F-L-A-T Flat! I’ve never seen such flatness! Flat
land, stippled with the stubble of crops waiting for the spring that has
now finally sprung. Farm buildings and homes surrounded by clusters of
trees and the obligatory windmills. And the first windfarms I have ever
seen. And did I mention flat?

From the Driver’s Seat, Photos taken while headed North,
Northwest.

I watched hawks hunting along fences on the side of the road. And I saw
eagles! Bald eagles! The first time I’ve ever seen eagles in the wild.
And I hope to see many many more. They were beautiful and wild and
soaring high and free and I was thrilled to see them flying over the
Great River Road in Minnesota. And I saw bison! Not wild and not
soaring, but beautiful, nonetheless, in Illinois. I saw the biggest
cross I’ve ever seen (also in Illinois, I think), one I may have heard
about on NPR years ago. I saw an old blacksmith shop in Iowa and a field
full of Indian mounds. (We have those here in Alabama, too, of course,
but I was fascinated to be reminded that the mounds can be found all
along the Mississippi River, and I long to follow the trail, just for
the hades of it.

I saw clouds hanging over the flat land that stretched as far as I could
see, with only the huddled homesteads to break the monotony with a
monotony of their own. Winter still held the land and the only colors
were brown, brown and brown. But the colors in the sky seemed determined
to make up for the lack of color on the ground. The clouds caught the
rays of the sun and reflected them, so that I watched two suns sink
behind the clouds, making me rub my eyes as I turned my head to peer out
the rolled down window and squinted into the wind. The wind, oh, the
wind! The wind never stopped during the whole trip, and I never saw
another sunset like the one I saw that first day, my first day on the
Prairie.

Looking for Bald Eagles on the Great River Road, Passing Through
River Towns.

Next: Further along the Great River Road, and watching Eagles.