Essay on the road to the desert

Until now, I have almost never looked at the weather forecast. This is not because of its accuracy, but because I have almost never had a reason to care about the weather. When I was a child at home, most adults paid close attention to this program. Of course, farmers must care about the weather. Sometimes they would express regret if they missed it. But I'm a little tired of it because the TV series is right behind it. I always look forward to the early arrival of TV series, and of course I hate this thing that blocks the arrival of TV series. Before setting off this time, I checked the weather conditions in Hohhot "in the next few days" online, and the information I got was: it will be cloudy on the 4th and 5th, with possible light rain, it will be cloudy and clear on the 6th, and the lowest night temperature will reach 2 degrees. (This is the main reason why I went online to buy a windbreaker.) But I am quite dissatisfied with this kind of weather. The desert is okay, and the gloomy weather can still show its vastness and depth, but the grassland has always been The image in my mind always matches the blue sky and white clouds.

On the website of Kuang Travel Agency, there is also a promotion to enjoy the sunrise and sunset on the grassland and the starry sky at night. The website specifically describes the first day's itinerary like this: "After breakfast, drive to Xilamuren Prairie, climb Aobao Mountain, worship Aobao, visit herdsmen's families, and taste dairy products. After lunch, take photos on horseback (at your own expense), Watch horse racing and wrestling performances, and enjoy the sunset over the western mountains. Enjoy hand-chopped meat and Mongolian singing and dancing for dinner. After dinner, watch ethnic singing and dancing or participate in a bonfire party, watch the beautiful starry sky on the grassland, and sleep in a yurt. Enjoy the magnificent sunrise over the grassland with dewdrops, and return to Hohhot after breakfast..."

What a beautiful advertising picture this is! Even the beef on the instant noodle box is inferior in comparison.

However, according to the route schedule on the website, the grassland happened to be on the first day, which was the 4th. The weather forecast said there would be light rain turning to cloudy weather. In this way, the blue sky and white clouds will be gone, the sunrise and sunset will be gone, and the sky at night will be just dark, and there will never be a "beautiful starry sky". Woohoo, these beautiful scenes are gone. Woohoo, damn the weather and my bad luck.

Although I am somewhat willing to hope that the weather forecast is inaccurate, I also know that it is impossible. I believe in the current weather forecast obtained by high-tech means.

But then there were two unexpected changes.

The first turning point was a change in the itinerary, and the trip to the grassland was moved to the last day. In fact, it’s not a transfer, but the group I’m traveling with has already been away for a day and has been to the grassland. I’m an individual traveler, so I joined their group and started my trip from their desert trip on the second day to the grassland. Of course the trip turned to the last day. When the tour guide told me about what I thought was a good turn of events, I began to feel that I was very lucky, and even had thoughts like "God is blessing me." But if you think about it carefully, you still can’t see the sunrise, sunset and “beautiful starry sky” on the grassland, because the entire trip will be over by the afternoon of the third day. My mood that suddenly became euphoric became a little lower, but I finally kept the blue sky and white clouds above the grassland. "Comfort is better than nothing." This change has brought me more than that.

Before the car left the city, the weather became even more gloomy. Soon after, it started to rain lightly, which proved that the weather forecast was accurate. I don’t know how long it took, but my heart became a little heavy, but my thoughts seemed to be frozen, and I just stared blankly out of the car window. Except for the occasional row of poplar trees, everything is gray. But the gray tone also has shades of light and dark, from almost gray yellow to lifeless withered gray color, from corn stalks and leaves in the field to withered grass in the wasteland, to low-rise residential buildings, all are gray. But they all seemed less alive, and even in the rain, there was a dry smell.

My heart encountered a rare silence at this time, or it could be said that it emptied some things and suppressed the turmoil outside. As for the routine introduction of the tour guide, I could not listen at all. This should be the tranquility of a wandering heart, a state of mind that is looking forward but not knowing where to go. For many years, I have always dreamed of wandering alone, going to the grasslands and the desert. However, now, I am finally alone on the road, and the desert is ahead, but it is a little lost.

However, the weather forecast was still wrong. This is what I call the second turning point. Near noon, the weather improved completely. It had been cloudy just now and even started to rain lightly, but now the sky was almost cloudless. In the next few days, the sky will be clear and clear. Overall, I have no dissatisfaction with God on this trip. When I first saw the gray weather, I thought Hohhot was just like other cities. The air had long been polluted by industrialization and it was difficult to see the clear blue sky.

One thing I have been thinking about for a long time is that I only see corn in the fields all the way here. I don’t know how to eat corn if it is used as a staple food, whether it should be made into tortillas or steamed buns. A kind of thing? Of course, this is also my common sense, having grown up in the South, where we only eat rice all year round, and noodles and the like are not even served as breakfast. We only cook them occasionally when we don’t want to cook or want to eat some. And I’ve never really liked pasta.

Taking an opportunity, I asked the tour guide this question, and her answer surprised me. These corns are for cows to eat. Now you can eat corn stalks. After eating the corn stalks Just eat corn kernels. It turns out that this is the milk source base of Yili and Mengniu. I suddenly realized it and thought that another mystery was solved. In fact, these common-sense doubts are due to my bad news and cannot be attributed to the strangeness of the matter itself.

The really "strange" thing was the rain that seemed to me to be light rain but the tour guide thought it was moderate rain. According to her, it rarely rains a few times a year here, and she even said the number was four or five. I don't know if she is exaggerating to show the environmental characteristics here, or is this really the case? When an eleven or twelve-year-old child who was traveling with her heard what she said, he immediately asked: "When is this rain coming?"

However, the climate and environment here do have very little water. There are no trees in places that can be called mountains, and those poplars are mostly in flatter places. I also learned from the tour guide that the poplars are Hebei poplar and Xinjiang poplar, which I didn’t know earlier. It seems that I heard her say that there are many Yang people in Xinjiang here, but I can’t remember exactly what she said. It’s just that I have a better understanding of these cold and drought-tolerant warriors.