Grassland Sky Road Travelogue

【Sky Road Notes】 We set off before the morning mist dispersed, wheels rolling over the wrinkles of China's Route 66. Wind turbines spun like giant clocks on steep slopes, while purple bush clover brushed against the car window, startling three red-footed falcons into flight. An old herdsman stopped our car with a crack of his whip, handing us a steaming aluminum pot—kumis mixed with grass fragments burned an ancient map of the Chilechuan plains down our throats. At noon, we picnicked beneath high-voltage towers, watching distant sheep climb terraced fields that resembled oil paintings. In a birch forest, we found half of a weathered saddle, its leather grooves embedded with grass seeds from 1998. Dusk dyed the asphalt road into a bronze sword as we chased migrating shadow clouds across the plains. Late at night, we stayed at the Half-Mountain Cloud Homestay, where the Milky Way poured through the observation window. I realized the grassland's stories are never silent—they eternally roar with primordial heartbeats in the resonance of wind and spinning wheels.