Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Clouds In the Valley


Mill Creek Valley Full of Clouds
Point and Click at 75 MPH

Sometimes on the way to work in the morning, the valleys east of Buffalo Mound are full of clouds.  It must be the warm waters of Mill Creek and the Kansas River responsible for this beautiful sight.  Naturally, I am always in a hurry to get to work, and it against the law to stop except for emergencies, but I discovered my new camera can take acceptable photos at 75 mph.

When I see Kansas at sunrise like this, I consider that before human beings ever set eyes on these hills, even before the tipis of the Plains peoples were ever staked to this soil, the valleys were filling with clouds in exactly this manner.

What if the waters were pure again? What if there were no roads, no interstates cutting through the natural landscape?  No fields, no invasive plants, no trees, no human beings?  What if all man-made noises were to cease? 

The beauty of the earth will endure beyond our selfish and destructive sojourn here.  I am certain of it.
North from Buffalo Mound

2 comments:

cyberkit said...

Wow! Is that a photographic version of a drive-by shooting?

When I looked at the 1st photo, I thought, "What clouds?" All I saw was a bunch of snow on the ground in the distance. The others showed me how cool it was. (Don't ask me why I didn't notice that there wasn't snow anywhere else.)

Jackie said...

It was a drive-by shooting! Wasn't going for artsy - just recording fact, sir.

It's not that we never get fog in Kansas because we do. Sometimes there is widespread fog due to weather conditions that covers hundreds of miles. Two things make this fog different: few places in Kansas are high enough to allow a person to see fog in the distant valleys - and few valleys deep enough to form fog! lol