{"id":1745,"date":"2011-07-04T21:54:09","date_gmt":"2011-07-05T01:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/?p=1745"},"modified":"2011-07-04T21:54:09","modified_gmt":"2011-07-05T01:54:09","slug":"dont-tell-me-the-moon-is-blue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/04\/dont-tell-me-the-moon-is-blue\/","title":{"rendered":"don’t tell me the moon is blue"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re back from our Midwest getaway. We slept and read lots and indulged in the culinary treats of the region, including cheeseburgers with peanut butter<\/a>, frozen custard<\/a>, and ribs<\/a>. This year\u2019s trip was a bit shorter than usual so we only had time for a quick overnight trip to Chicago, though it was still long enough for duck fat fries<\/a> and the best dang Swedish breakfast<\/a> for miles.<\/p>\n

On the drive north to Chicago we passed through an enormous wind farm. And I mean enormous: definitely hundreds of acres covered by windmills, maybe more. When you\u2019re in the midst of it the windmills stretch farther than the eye can see, and since the land is pretty flat around here that\u2019s a long way off. I suspect it\u2019s one electric company that owns the windmills (yes, I know I could google it, but I\u2019m trying to avoid the internet when I write) because they seem to be located on many different corn and soybean farm fields. They\u2019re spread various distances apart \u2014 sometimes there are multiple windmills in a row, and sometimes they\u2019re more isolated \u2014 though all of them are pointing in the same direction.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to get a sense of the scale of each windmill. They\u2019re almost toylike when you first catch a glimpse of the blades in the distance, and grow to truly unbelievably massive when you\u2019re driving right past one. (I tried to get some good photos but the limits of the phone camera + shooting from the passenger seat thwarted the best shots.)<\/p>\n

\n\"windmill1\"<\/p>\n

\"windmill2\"\n<\/div>\n

On our way up to Chicago the air was pre-thunderstorm still so most of the blades weren\u2019t turning. But on the drive back south every windmill was working hard to earn its keep. When the angle lines up right and you can see an entire line of windmills spinning they sort of resemble synchronized swimmers in those old movies. It\u2019s mesmerizing to watch the blades turn \u2014 I could watch it for hours, I think.<\/p>\n

The windmills make the landscape seem somewhat alien, as if spaceships dropped them off and flew away. Maybe I\u2019ve just watched too many scifi movies \u2014 with the summer haze they have a floating quality, like the big ship in District 9. Or maybe they hide something larger beneath, like the awful, crappy remake of War of the Worlds. And of course I can\u2019t help but channel the Simpsons: I for one welcome our windmill overlords!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re back from our Midwest getaway. We slept and read lots and indulged in the culinary treats of the region, including cheeseburgers with peanut butter, frozen custard, and ribs. This year\u2019s trip was a bit shorter than usual so we only had time for a quick overnight trip to Chicago, though it was still long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[32,74,34],"class_list":["post-1745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crunchy","tag-travel","tag-vacation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1745"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1757,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions\/1757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}