Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

I think that Keith County Nebraska at 7:22pm on a weekday night is the most beautiful place in the world.

I drove my car loaded with kids and dog through Western Nebraska this week and worked in rural offices and dropped my kids off at the city pool at small towns. I ate a grilled chicken salad at McDonalds, Wendys, Amigos and Sonic. I walked my dog next to irrigated corn as tall as my knees in Western Nebrasaka and as tall as my head in Central Nebraska. We played Cows and License Plate and Road Kill Bingo and sang along to the radio. I ate taco dip with a judge in a rural town and won a motion in a telephone hearing. We saw Chimney Rock and the Scottsbluff Monument and Jailhouse and Courthouse Rock and lots of cows and corn and hills.

But Keith County.

We were the only car on the highway as we drove through rolling hills while the sun was lowering in the sky for early evening and it was beautiful - like one of those Terry Redland prints that I hate. The news was over and Mozart played as we silently cruised past wagon wheel ruts and one room school houses made of sod and it felt as if our car were a time capsule and we were hurtling through another time. The grass was a downy chicken - thick brown at the base and then with thin, soft yellow plumes coming up that waved in the breeze. The clouds were making shadows on the grass as they moved.

Indians could ride over the hill on horses following a herd of buffalo and I would not blink.