I won’t admit that I feel nostalgia toward my time in Kansas, as I really love where I am in life now. However, driving back and forth to my research sites in Western Kansas, I got to experience the amazing raw beauty that was the prairie.

The homesteading act gave people money to settle land too densely, so a lot of the homesteads were abandoned for better opportunity. These abandoned buildings are wooden, and give variations in coloration. They keep standing, and even though the American dream didn’t exist for them, a testament to the resilience of Americans.

I really love the coloration in this picture, the greens and grasses. But what I love most is the sky and the clouds. Everything came together in this picture I represent what I loved so much about prairie skies.