It’s a challenge to summarize several days of traveling across the United States when the changes in the landscape are both subtle and dramatic, passing from wide open prairies and plains, to crop-filled fields in various stages of agriculture, and ultimately to the dramatic scenes of the mountains and rivers of the far west. I enjoy the slow evolution of the landscape and find it one of the most peaceful experiences I know to be the passive recipient of all this novelty and beauty. For there is beauty in even the scrubbiest landscape when one considers it supports life in some form, even if we can’t see it.

These are just examples of the slow progression we experienced over the last four days before we reached our destination in Seattle.