And driving south from Chicago, except for a few areas where rivers change the terrain slightly and a few college towns, there is nothing but absolutely flat farm fields with rich, dark brown soil for hundreds of miles. It is not difficult to go to a place where you cannot see a house or a single tree or a utility pole in any direction. Just empty fields bisected by the road you took to get to that spot. Especially after the harvest in the fall, it can be jarring but it is really beautiful, in its own way. For sure, it's peaceful!
Having driven through all of them many times, I can tell you that the parts of Illinois that are not Chicago are basically indistinguishable from Indiana, Iowa, etc.
*mildly* surprised to not see California or Alaska on here...but... having driven through the middle of the country where 100% of these states are (and lived in California), it's not really that surprising. Most boring drive of my life was going through Iowa. 300 miles of corn. That was until I got to Nebraska. 400 miles of corn. So many bugs by the time we got to Wyoming it looked like we had slaughtered an animal on the hood of my car.
Had to drive from Chicago to Ogden, Iowa for a funeral and back. I empathize with you, really. At least there was a tornado on the way back to keep things from being completely monotonous.
I'm gonna be honest, Iowa has more like a dozen/two dozen towns to drive through and do stuff in. Nebraska has Omaha and Lincoln. There's nothing past them.
I haven't... but I can't imagine how it could possibly be worse.
I did drive through the salt flats of Utah, which were more flat and featureless than driving through Nebraska, but in that case it takes it to such an extreme level that it becomes surreal and a bit mesmerizing. When you can't tell the difference between Earth and sky, the landscape and the horizon and the atmosphere all bleed and blur together in a blinding white haze with one perfectly straight black line extending out in front of you seemingly into infinity, slowly disappearing into a shimmer, like driving into the twilight zone. So I feel like Iowa/Nebraska are at the absolute lowest point of being flat, featureless and monotonous until you get to the point where it becomes so extreme that it loops around and becomes interesting again. What's North Dakota like? I've been to South Dakota.
No traffic jams or rush hour traffic - I'll take that any day over city driving...although remembering many trips through Kansas on the way to see my uncle in Colorado does make me think twice about my statement.
Flew from Australia to Dallas to, among other things, drive part of Route 66 from Oklahoma City to Chicago. Was interesting to see the farmland/rural areas in the US- quite different to our own down under! No tornadoes though (sadly?)
I've seen several and I'd gladly have exchanged places with you at those times. One of those caused several fatalities. And do not try to get close to one because they can quickly change direction. The one I remember best was in Arkansas when we were in the funeral procession of my husband's grandmother. We had to pull over to wait for a small twister to cross the road in front of the hearse. We watched as the back of the hearse raised up and lowered and rocked right and left several times, and my husband had to roll up his window because quarter-sized balls of mud were peppering our car like hail. An eerie green pinwheel started spinning on the hood of our car and another one swirled orange on the wire fence next to the road. They looked like fireworks going off. Not sure if it was St. Elmo's fire or maybe ball lightning but I've never seen anything like it before or since. I'm very thankful that was a small tornado.
Yes, too many tree-covered hills in the Ozarks and Ouachitas to make the list. (By the way, Ouachita is pronounced like "Wash'-i-taw" not "Oo-chee'-tah" as Howard Cosell used to say it.)
Surprised southern states aren't on here. So what is the Deep South good for if they're not farming? They sure aren't leading industries or building giant cities. Also surprised not to see Wisconsin on here, with it being stereotyped as Dairyland.
There's lots of farmland in the south but it is balanced out with plenty of hills, swamps, and pine forests. Energy and real estate are big industries, there are lots of pulp mills and manufacturing, and aerospace is big there, too. Houston and Atlanta might argue with you that the Deep South isn't growing big cities.
I did drive through the salt flats of Utah, which were more flat and featureless than driving through Nebraska, but in that case it takes it to such an extreme level that it becomes surreal and a bit mesmerizing. When you can't tell the difference between Earth and sky, the landscape and the horizon and the atmosphere all bleed and blur together in a blinding white haze with one perfectly straight black line extending out in front of you seemingly into infinity, slowly disappearing into a shimmer, like driving into the twilight zone. So I feel like Iowa/Nebraska are at the absolute lowest point of being flat, featureless and monotonous until you get to the point where it becomes so extreme that it loops around and becomes interesting again. What's North Dakota like? I've been to South Dakota.
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