Oct 6, 2010
Wanted: One Terrain Cartographer For Explanation
Know those boring blog posts featuring stuff like airplane wings? Well this is not one of those. Because this is a boring blog post featuring the stuff that lies beyond the airplane wings. Namely:
Could someone please explain to Bossy what she is looking at here? Because this particular terrain dominates the American landscape for hours as one’s airplane crosses the country from ocean to ocean, especially if that one is Bossy on her way home from California.
Are they farms? And if so, why are some of the patches the color of an eggplant while others are neon yellow? Just kidding about the yellow. Bossy wanted to see if her council was still paying attention, because it’s easy to lose all perspective when writing about terrain cartography, a phrase you may be surprised to learn Bossy just made up!
And, like, what’s this?
While we’re on the subject — and just to remind you that subject is terrain cartography — and what do you mean Bossy is beginning to lose it? because clearly Bossy has lost it already — what is this?
In fact, the only thing Bossy recognized from the air during her six-hour journey was this:
Driveways, Bossy! Driveways! And fields of various crops, including soybeans, milo, harvested fields ready for replanting, etc. The most beautiful land in the world. (Why, yes, I am from Kansas.)
Twisty = driveways and there are houses there just too tiny/flat to see (tornados you know). The different colored fields? I know they “rotate” and don’t plant the same every year so maybe it’s part of the rotation?
What about the big circles you see from the air? Crop circles? Aren’t they a myth? This terrain cartography stuff is so confusing.
OK, The big circles I know – from having driven past them, there are irrigation systems that look like spiderwebs with wheels and irrigate in a circle.
I suspect the squiggly lines plus blotches are subdivisions with cul-de-sac’s.
As for the different colored farms, perhaps the yellow ones are growing corn, and the egplant-colored ones are growing aubergines, and the green ones are growing lettuces, and the brown ones are growing …. um….kiwi?
ok, the green fields with the lines (pic 5) are most likely rice or soybean fields. You have someone come out and plan how your land would drain the best and then you make those lines (learned this from the hubby who is from NE Arkansas). The lines in pics 6 & 7 look like oil fields to me. Each little road leads to a pump jack (pumps oil out of the ground). Just my guesses =)
Thank God I’m not the only one who sits in airplanes and thinks about this stuff.
I am now hoping to take a plane trip with Brenda, the Wise.
Another option for photo #5 with the twisty lines: A field that’s laying fallow for the year and being used for atv fun. (Although the drainage thing is probably more correct in this situation as the lines don’t connect often. But I’ve seen many a temporary atv track in dormant fields around farmville.)
The baseball diamond from hell, which looks to be in a more hilly region, is likely subdivision with minimum 5-15 acre lots. Each of those squiggles is a drive. The squares are the developed area around the homes.
I love Terrain Cartography.
They should have cut Bossy off at 1500 ft…..
That’s where your foodie comes from ‘yo!!!
I like some of the answers already here…very helpful. However, i just wanted to say I am so glad I am not the only one who pondes the most bizarre stuff. Drives my husband crazy. Like just today I posted on FB why do all the “real housewives” have long flowing tresses and no one has short hair???
OR You know those car air fresheners you hang from your rearview mirror? What scent do the ones that say “I love Jesus” have??!!
Theresa is my kind of gal
dear daughter…the apple doesn’t…..
I am always so curious about this very thing…could it be so difficult to give a little terrain talk from the cockpit. The most I ever heard is “we are now flying over the grand canyon”.
God is in the details.
Different crops in different stages of harvest are different colors. The lines in pic 5 are some sort of trails – could be a corn maze, could be 4 wheeler tracks, could be horseback trails. The other 2 pics of twisty lines are housing developments, and pricey ones me thinks, as the homes are large and far apart.
Bossy, thanks for sharing your random thoughts with us, along with your excelent Photoshop skills.
It looks like lots of people suffer from too much time in their minds (yea, me too)
Wow, I’m amazed at how many people know about crop farming! Usually when I’m in a plane I look down and think “Oh look, land.” Then I concentrate on not dying.
Well, I think that the twisty lines in the 5th picture are signs Aliens have visited. I’m surprised no one else mentioned this.
While I’d like to agree with Brenda, that the squiggly lines are soy bean drainage, it’s way more fun to agree with Deb who said they’re signs the Aliens have visited. Yep, Deb gets my vote.
Wha, we weren’t supposed to vote?
Once again I am rendered dumb during my time to comment because ANOTHER commenter made me laugh so hard I forgot… #15 Angela? *high five*
Ha ha ha – I love it! I love this post and I love all these comments. Seriously though – I’m so glad we all wonder what those crazy plots are when flying between Utah and California or wherever else. Love this blog!
Bossy, you have been in the city too long. You need to come to “flyover land” more often. There are lots of us living here.
Pics #6 & 7 are where the aliens landed and have burrowed in and you in planes get to look at them like ant farms while those of us, terresterially bound, must walk among them and, occasionally, mate with them.
crops, roads, driveways, homes! the different colors are fields of different crops and/or crops at different stages (mown, reseeded, plowed under…).
one reason I don’t post comments is I’m never funny. sigh. but comments are nice, so I’m posting this one.
I have always wondered what it was down there.Never asked about it. Thank you Bossy! The alien theory makes the most sense to me.
One of the best trips I ever took was a five day driving trip (KWIM, Bossy?) from Oklahoma City straight up the middle through to Fargo. The dream come true part for this very coastal girl was that my company in the car was a woman who grew up in TX, MN, and KS and could tell me every crop on the way, plus the best truck stops. I felt like I got an American passport stamp that week, I learned so much. Thanks for the Council who can decipher the land from the air!
Sewmouse may have solved my problem with the giant circles, flying from AZ to MN I see them every time, never understood them. The squiggly stuff? well without my glasses they are earth sperm. I always wonder about the people who have houses out in the middle of ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE close to a town, what the hell? I’m not talking about 50 miles, I’m talking what looks like 500 miles!
Oh, and Bossy, thats for bringing this topic up. I learned alot.
Actually the twisty things are oil and gas rigs, unfortunately. And the reason for the different colors of the fields is crop rotation
You mean you didn’t sign into your GoGo inflight Wi Fi and follow along on Google Maps?
They’re all different types of crops, or maybe some fields just plowed. And all the bits on the last two photos are little houses, right?
Either way, aeroplane window views are great. I prefer them over cities… weird perspective.
Bossy’s Mom…I have been thinking for years that the airlines should have a pamphlet or book or that, as you said, the pilots give an informal talk about what you are seeing…it is fascinating and would be really enjoyable for about three people on the flight.
#10 Theresa:
I think that the “I love Jesus” air fresheners SHOULD smell like stale bread and cheap muscatel – but it’s probably Piney fresh or soemthing.
Looks like the linoleum in some sleasy rest stop lady’s room to me. Bossy’s funning with us. She didn’t fly across the country, she drove (again).
Wow, the US really is BIG you guys! I’ve only been to the US once, and NYC at that, so didn’t fly over much land at all, just endless Atlantic (which is FREAKY and DOESN’T BEAR MUCH THINKING ABOUT)…
Europe is very different – not nearly so patchworky, much more haphazard and, of course, with everything so much closer together…
Hope I get to see this lovely patchwork some day…
5 and 6 are definitely gas wells. I think about this stuff too. What blows me away are the miles and miles of absolute NOTHING west of the Rockies! I’m always imagining life in these places – love flying for that very reason.