The road went around the Blue Mountains into the Palouse, one of the most visually striking topographical regions in America. The treeless, rounded hills, shaped by ice and wind and water to a sensuous nudity, were sprouting an intensely green fuzz of winter wheat. These fertile highlands, the steepest American cropland, are so vast and rich, special machinery has been built to work them: twelve-wheel, self-leveling tractors and combines that can ride the thirty percent gradients.
