I recently came to the realization that there have been 4 general landscapes on this trip after leaving the wilderness of home.
The first was, of course, farmland. This land is generally flatter with soft changes in gradient and in crop. Sometimes there were small water forms (a pond, a creek) and something they were much more notable (a river, a lake).
The second has been prairieland. This is also flat, though not always, but seems to be much more cattle-based than crop-based. There is vegetation but it isn't as deep of a green and it can even be brown or yellow.
Both the first and second have limited trees. It might be because they have been knocked down to make more usable land, or it might be because trees don't thrive in those areas. It seems like a lot of work to cut down so many trees. It also seems odd the random trees that do still exist if they did tear so many others down.
Then there have been what I think are buttes. Hills randomly just pop up, oftentimes in multiples. They look as if someone took an ice cream scoop and scooped up tiramisu as they often consist of layers of rocks. They aren't very tall, but seem tall next to the flat land from which they rise. They aren't overly domineering nor do they look impossible to climb but they do look fairly steep. They would be a workout for anyone to get to the top. These I am labeling buttes based on the rock they seem to be made of which would not be farmable (if flat). The land surrounding these buttes can be farmland or prarieland. It does conjure up images of what it would be like to have some of these in my backyard growing up. Imagine the games kids could play or the sledding kids could do. I would have been tempted to have a fort or hideout at the top. Of course, that is much easier for me to imagine from my car than actually climbing one of them. Theodore Roosevelt National Park (and Badlands National Park) is made up of these all bunched together. They called them "badlands" which I'm guessing is either because they are bad for farming and/or bad guys used them to hide out in (history and facts as told by me). [Actually, according to the Department of the Interior, the name "Badlands" comes from the Lakota people. They labeled the terrain with these scoops of ice cream "badlands" because it was hard to travel on.]
The last landform has been what I am labeling as mini-mountains. According to National Geographic, a landform has to reach 1,000 feet higher than it's surroundings in order to be labeled a mountain. I am not sure what 1,000 ft really looks like, but I would guess some of the land masses I have seen do not qualify. These land forms are smaller ranges both in height and in length. They could be climbed rather easily (as in up and down in an hour or two) and don't cast a huge shadow. I'm guessing these will become more prevalent when I approach the mountains later on this trip.
I have started to see variations on the third and fourth land forms. For a while I have been seeing those earth pimples (the buttes), but they have been mostly bald. Recently, in my drive from SE MT to NE WY and again driving around SD, I started seeing those buttes with evergreen trees on top, ponderosa pines to be exact. At first, they looked like sprinkles on top of the tiramisu scoops, a handful thrown on top. Now, it looks like someone rolled the scoop in pine tree sprinkles. They are sometimes fully covered.
The mini-mountains also have been covered in pines. It actually reminds me a bit of PA or certainly of the Pacific Northwest. My drive in SD yesterday, specifically leading to and from Deadwood, has had a much more wildernessy-vibe. They call this area "the Black Hills". Naturally, although it is pretty - I'm less excited to see woods. It is odd to think that not too far away in all directions the land is relatively flat and has few trees. I wonder why these trees exist in these places when they don't exist in other places nearby. [From the little research I did online, I saw references that the seeds were maybe brought from further western mountain landscapes by early inhabitants. The pine trees are self seeding, so a few seeds brought from the west may have spread with the help of wind and began to cover the SE Montana, NE Wyoming and Western parts of SD.] The contrast between the relatively tree-less land and now the very dense pine forest is certainly unexpected, in my o-pine-ion.
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