First, "Watership Down", by Richard Adams - a bookcrossing book I picked up a few years ago. Not too bad, but a little slow going (picked up at the end). It's a bit meandering, and just when you think it could stop they just keep on going. And I realised they were going to need does before they'd even left, you wonder why they didn't (they were male *rabbits* for heavens sake!)...
Also, "On the Banks of Plum Creek" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. So *this* is the book they based the tv series off. They're in Minnesota, with the house seen the tv show (with the upstairs attic room for the girls), and where Nellie Oleson is. Turns out (from the beginning of the next book) they only spent about five years here from when Laura was eight to thirteen.
One of these days I'll have do a road trip across the prairies of America. Like Australia's wide open spaces, I imagine it's a little hard to comprehend how vast they are. I did get a hint of it in 2000 when I flew from San Francisco to New York. This was taken over Nebraska somewhere, and I was amazed at how endless the plains were...
Fiona
wow... look at the squares... we get some of that out rural areas here, but nothing that extensive!
Missy
Having driven a few times across Nebraska and lots of times through central and southern Illinois, let me assure you it gets old very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very fast! But it is vast. ;-)
Kazza the Blank One
Fiona: according to Google Earth, each one of those little squares is a mile square (although somewhat subdivided as well).
Missy: I might just have to go to Walnut Grove then and visit Plum Creek (and their homestead which is still standing (apparently) further west near De Smet).
Missy
Yes, seeing the homes and homesteads is fun. I'll have to ask my mother again which ones we saw years ago. I used to know somebody that had visited all the locations! I was simply referring to driving through all those fields in the plains.
Kazza the Blank One
oo cool! :)