As the day breaks, a beautiful hush
Hangs o’er breathtaking fields, oh so lush,
But this deceptive green,
Is the most ever seen,
For the rain’s turned the whole place to mush.

Sometimes it’s the colors that tell the real story, and it’s a tragedy. Driving along, enjoying the lovely green fields in North Dakota and Montana, we suddenly realized: It’s not supposed to be green here! And those blue waters? The ones over the road? They’re not supposed to be here, either.

A rancher in Montana yesterday told us about digging a post hole on top of a rocky hill and coming back, two days later, to find it half-full of water. “It hasn’t rained, has it?” he asked his Dad, incredulous. “Nope.” In all their lives, folks have never seen the ground this saturated. Many folks couldn’t plant their crops. The ones who did say their hay’s not forming heads and ripening.

Our pictures show blue skies, puffy clouds, and vast green fields. The news organizations’ photos show tragic flooding and families fleeing their homes. Both capture the truth of 2011.

Here’s where we crossed the Mississippi.

And here’s some of the flooding along I-94.

The following super-green photos were taken at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.

We were driving from Durham to ocean,
When we happened upon a commotion.
All the folks in a huddle,
Had been stopped by the puddle,
But it did not impede our car’s motion.

I’d been worried, unable to sleep,
For I feared that my friend’s trusty Jeep,
Might get stranded and drown,
In that flood, murky brown,
But the water was 2 inches deep!

At an ice cream shop in Vanceboro, North Carolina, the woman behind the counter told us she had to be rescued from her house that morning by boat. When we asked about any flooding on US 17 to the south, she said, dramatically, “The water is over the road up that way — and it’s rising.” Concerned, we hurried through our ice cream and got back on the road. We found the flooding, one block away. It was just a big puddle.
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Here in sunny Nebraska, this morn
There’s a steer who is feeling forlorn,
He looks up and says, “Moo!”
Which means, “Hi, how are you?
I like grass, pleeeeeease don’t make me eat corn.”

Driving through CAFO country is enough to turn anyone vegetarian…

Now there once was a feller, McCain,
And he took matching funds to campaign.
Now Barack has the dough
For his own TV show,
Which makes baseball fans loudly complain.

Speaking of complaining, Barry rolled his eyes and said no more political entries in our Adventures blog. But he just can’t stop me from limerickin’!

When the big female candidate cried,
People said, “The ex-president’s bride
Is not really tough,
And campaigning is rough.”
But it brought voters o’er to her side.