Prairie burn

Something else one doesn't see Down East are highway signs telling you what to do in event of encountering trop de smoke from controlled prairie burns.

Controlled what?, we ask back in civilisation [sic].

Prairie burns! Last year's wheat, milo, etc all are burnt away by controlled burning, tightly controlled and regimented. We saw a whole field ablaze in the darkest night. And yes, it was that poetic. It's dangerous, too - the Bride's grandmother, when your reporting greenhorn quizzed her about said burning, was quick to say "Yes - a man was killed just yesterday when the fire got away from him, they had on the news." High drama on the plains, yo! As for the signage, huge black plumes of smoke will cross the highway when the wind is right (wrong?), and cars are required to sit and wait (the darkness is impenetrable) until it is clear again. Bring a picnic lunch!

Also, on return trip, the weird lunar Kansas surface was charred black in long stretches from the fires and made yet blacker by heavy rains, giving the whole place, horizon to horizon, a feel of nuclear winter (or maybe some highly volcanic and unsettled Hawaiian island). That we passed through Lawrence, where The Day After was shot, made it all the more, um, special. No sign commemorating a visit from Jason Robards, alack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVYirmpptuY