A long ride through the Corn

This past weekend I drove from my home in Schenectady NY to South Bend Indiana to watch my beloved Notre Dame football team attempt to knock off USC. Well the Irish fell a little short (4 yards to be exact)but what I saw on my drive was interesting to me. I know that before taking this course I would have never paid much attention to the massive amount of corn farms I seen on my 10 hour drive. The drive takes you out to Buffalo NY then southwest following lake Erie into north western Pennsylvania. Then into and across Ohio straight into Indiana. I have to say I have never seen so much corn in my life. Some of these farms had large processing plant on them. I also saw a plant that made ethanol. Ohio by far had the most corn and a very good amount of grain. Indiana had a lot of corn fields but not at the same scale of the Ohio farms. I did see some live stock but not as much as I expected to see. In western NY and PA there was some very large vinyards nestled in between the the corn. So normally I wouldnt think anything of it, but as I drove I kept thinking about NPP and how the grapes and corn are basically stored solar energy. Then I kept thinging wondering if any of these farms where getting large amounts of govt. subsidies. Then I thought about how barren these huge flat fields of corn would be if no corn was on them and that it would be like a big dust bowl. I also noticed that there really wasnt many trees at all, just endless corn fields. I have to say my mind just didnt stop. 2 months ago this would have been a mindless boring drive. On top of all that thought brought on by the corn and grapes, every time I filled my SUV I thought about how much it was costing me but yet that I was glad there was gas available to me so I could make this special trip.
I noticed at Notre Dame that they where trying to "go green" they had recycle bins and trash bins every where around campus, the bathrooms had the super power hand dryers and no paper towels.
I have to say that I am shocked at the impact the information from this course has had effected the how I see and view my surroundings.