Farm Country

I know that people think I am crazy, but I love the wide-open spaces of the Midwest. I am thankful for them. They soothe me.
I was born in western PA, spent time growing up in Texas, Michigan, Ohio and finally Illinois. Maybe it's because I have lived here the longest. Perhaps it's just part of my personality. Maybe I shouldn't try to explain it. I just love it here.
Every year, we make a trip back to PA to visit family. It is beautiful. There are trees, and hills, and curvy roads and I can't tell you which way is north, because not a single road goes straight to its destination. There is so much to look at, so much to see.
I find that after I have been there a while I start to feel claustrophobic. There is lots to see, but I can't see very far. I don't know what's over that hill or around that bend in the road.
As we head west to come back home, the hills gradually flatten (and my car is thankful for that.) The highways straighten out. And I can look out the windows and see for miles. And I can breathe again.
When I was got my license, and gas was $0.99 a gallon, I used to drive around in the country to see if I could get lost. I always found my way home. I loved knowing that roads either ran north-south or east-west. I loved driving by all of those farms and imagining the families inside, wondering how long that farm had been in their family, who had built that corn-crib.
So, each Thanksgiving, as we drive from our first meal with DH's family to our second meal with my family, I enjoy watching the November sunset over those empty fields and barns and farm houses and more recently, windmills. I feel a little melancholy. But it's beautiful.