It's all the same to me

Its about 300 miles from Chicago to St. Louis. 300 boring miles. What can you do to stay alert while driving through the monotonous countryside?

I decided to take a photo out my front window every 10 miles. I tried to capture the rear-view as well to give a more complete sense of the space I was occupying at that moment. At time, I thought compiling all the photos into a collage would make an artistic statement. Instead, it simply whimpers, "it's all the same."

Covering such ground in my current home region of France, would take you through dense forests, river valleys, vineyards and rock formations. To be fair, the French Autoroute also tends to follow a mundane path, but at least there is some change in elevation.

I grew up in the Midwest, so the plains shouldn't surprise me so. But having visited many beautiful regions of the US and abroad, I find myself expecting more. A travel companion acknowledged that the sameness of the American Midwest has it's own enduring quality. True as that may be, I wonder if I will be able to accept that fact upon returning from a world of geographic and cultural diversity.