Riding Off into the Sunset

So here we are, zipping along I90 in South Dakota, we've been driving all day and are just about to cross the Missouri River (and it is indeed, wide). At home we have a a map of the Minnesota and Dakota territories, dated 1860, and it is interesting that 'Dacotah' is a relatively narrow strip of land bounded at its west limit by the Missouri. Cross the river and you are in Nebraska. Today, the state of South Dakota extends all the way to the Black Hills - which is where we are headed. I mention this because to me, at least, crossing the Missouri means that we are definitively Somewhere Else. Goodbye to the cornfields and rich farmland. Hello to the grasslands, ranches and cattle. It's emptier and wilder and strangely beautiful. The sky is bigger. I have packed my cowboy hat.