Maps

there's a dope environmental history book called "Where the Sky Began: Land of the Tallgrass Prairie" by John Madson. first published in 1982. there is not much native prairie left to be seen, but there are restoration projects where one can see some and imagine what it may have looked like before columbus. i recall early descriptions of the tallgrass prairie being that one had to stand up in their stirrups on horseback to see over the top of the grass. when hot temperatures and less rains came toward the end of season, lightning could strike starting a fire that, with wind, would tear across the plains faster than anything could move. i read once that the sioux words for fire, buffalo, and prairie all had the same root, as they are intimately connected by seasonality and precipitation cycles.

the book is kind of incredible at pulling together ecology and first contact reports of seeing the sweeping plains. there are only 3 grasslands of similar or greater size on the entire planet: the eurasian steppes, the african savannahs, and this. most european settlers had no cultural understanding of what they were looking at and at first turned back because the conventional wisdom was "if it couldn't support trees, it was no good as farmland." even later, many couldn't deal with the psychology of feeling so exposed on the land with nothing to hide behind, turning back to the hill communities more similiar to their lands of origin.

the plains are more of a continental climate too, with tremendous temperature swings seasonally and within short durations. it's a crazy part of the planet meteorologically.

I didn't appreciate the Great Plains until I saw it from the foothills of the Colorado Rockies. There's something surreal about looking west to see everything going up forever and east at an endless sea of grass.

edit: Found a panorama photo from a hike called Grey Rock, one of the most prominent "mountains" in the foothills. It's a northern 180 degree view with Wyoming and Nebraska in the distance-

There's about a 2700m/9000' elevation difference between the snow-capped mountains and the plains in that. The ecosystems change drastically with every 300m/1000' gain so there's a profound biological shift occurring with the wildly dramatic geology.

I'm the opposite: I live in the Netherlands and am drawn to hilly/mountainous places

Wanna trade? I would love to see the more snowy and mountainous regions, I've grown up in the shrubland deserts my whole life. lol I get super excited by the prospect of a light sprinkling of rain, and have only seen snow a few times in my entire life.