Ring Around the Prairie....

[laughingwillow]

There is recently completed beltway around the Des Moines metro area that appears to neatly encircle all things urban when viewed from the sky. However, the reality of the situation is a little more fluid. Developments are now being planned outside the beltway due to improved access to the highway system. So, basically. the logistics of life on an isolated acreage just got easier due to quicker commutes to, from and around the metro area. Gravel roads are seeing more traffic than usual. Some are even being paved to lure city folks to prime real estate a little further out on the prairie.

Recently transplanted families from the suburbs or city often discover a different type of anonymity than that enjoyed inside the metro beltway. There is simply no one looking over your shoulder in a part of the country where chance meetings at dusty intersections are often the only interaction between neighbors. Newcomers may even feel they blend in nicely with the farm families who have called the gravel grid crisscrossing the state of Iowa home for generations. However, there is one practice that separates the two groups. Folks who grow up in rural Iowa wave at each and every motorist, bicyclist, tractor or riding lawn mower they pass while driving as well as those travelers passing their property. Its just the way it is and always has been. So rural folks have little problem distinguishing people with their roots in the black Iowa soil and those who are recent transplants or just passing through. Often the gesture is a single finger raised from the steering wheel. Sometimes its a simple nod. In the heart of the prairie, most everyone follows this custom. But when one gets a little closer to the ring around the metro areas, rural folks often get no response from their greetings or maybe at best, a perplexed nod as the passing motorist turns and attempts to figure out how they know that person. And while many newcomers might remain oblivious to the custom, this subtle acknowledgment of shared roots and community is still practiced. So while the physical boundary of the city may be expanding and becoming blurred, its still fairly easy for rural folks to know which passing motorist might actually have horse shit on their boots to match the cowboy hat on their head....

lw