12 September 2017

.badlands + the heartland.


Driving into the badlands felt like I was transcending into a different world. I feel this often when I'm lost in nature - a total reset. A wake up to the reality life is so much bigger and more vibrant and more strange and more vast that I make it to be. 

The strange formations that sometimes looked like it could be giants looking down over the vast lands of the South Dakota desert and the layers of subtle colors that changed vibrancy with the light of the day. I arrived late in the afternoon and drove thru the park and then drove back thru again in the morning with the sunrise. It's truly an awe-inspiring place.



The next stop was the heartland - Nebraska + Iowa. Nebraska was forever flat lands of corn fields and soybean crops and tractor traffic on highway 20. I drove thru straight to Omaha. I was surprised to find great free + public art in Omaha. Some my favorite places were the Josyln Art Museum, Kineko and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. Iowa seemed to be more lush with soft rolling fields of corn and soybeans. I spent a day in Des Moines to find more great art, my favorite was the Des Moines Art Center. I then headed north to Dubuque where the land continued to slowly roll and interesting rock cliffs lined the highway. I slept on the banks of the Mississippi River. 




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