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Sunday, April 1, 2012

Barns of Benton County: Views of the Countryside

If you were to drive around Benton County, Iowa, on a random gravel road, this is what you would see. 

 
One road looks like another.  No oceans or lakes or mountains to mark the horizons.



Everywhere you go, there are small farms, big farms, old barns and new ones.


I often wonder if you took all of the small towns and homesteads of Benton County--excluding cropland--and crammed them all into city limits, what city would it approximate?



I'm glad we're spread out, usually. Sometimes I feel lonely and isolated, but I also enjoy sunrises, sunsets and quiet drives on gravel roads, watching the fields in the first blush of spring.

  
Have you taken a slow drive on a gravel road lately?





9 comments:

  1. I learned to drive on gravel (and sometimes dirt roads) in PA. As kids we always took a drive on a Sunday afternoon. Something I always looked forward to....but we were in the mountains so it was a whole different look. xo Diana

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  2. I love the look of the Iowa countryside. So open and peaceful.

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  3. These are wonderful views...and I love that last shot!

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  4. iowa is so full of white farm buildings. i love that. :)

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  5. such great view. far aways make it look so small. but i bet it looks huge up close. (:

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  6. When we lived in Indiana a year and a half ago, there were still many gravel roads.

    I think most of them have been paved up here in Wisconsin, at least we haven't encountered any.

    I love a pastoral setting like that - - - full of it's own rich farming heritage.

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  7. Nice shots! My area of Iowa looks very similar.

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  8. Fantastic & very large working farms & views, too!

    Thank you for joining =)

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  9. Beautiful country scenes! Still a lot of gravel roads here in Alaska, and wherever we are I always like traveling the back roads.

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