A Sight to Behold

Growing up in San Francisco, it’s hard to avoid making the dreary drive between the Bay Area and Los Angeles at least several times.

There are two basic routes. First, the stunning road along the coast, a twisty, winding trip with sheer cliffs falling into the mighty Pacific for much of the 10-hour trip. Just about everybody says they prefer this road simply for its sheer natural beauty, but most people end up going the other way because it takes about half as long, a tedious shot down straight-as-a-ruler Highway 5 through the Central Valley. It’s about as boring a drive as I’ve ever made. The most striking part of the trip is probably the massive feedlot in Coalinga; even at 85 mph, the smell of acres and acres of cows standing ankle-deep in their own poop lingers for a good half-hour. I’ve driven up and down the state more times than I can count, and I have yet to take the coastal road.

For me, the highlight of the trip has always been crossing over the Altamont Pass (yes, that Altamont), where the Bay Area ends and drivers enter I-5, and where the windswept hillsides are dotted with thousands of windmills. There are big ones and even bigger ones, two-blade models, three-blade models and (always my favorite) a few that look like the DNA double-helix spinning around and around. As a kid, I loved to watch them all spinning ‘round and ‘round, and when I started making the trip as an adult, I always made sure to point them out to my own kids.

Maybe that’s why I find it so cool that the Bluegrass Ridge Farm, Missouri’s first commercial wind farm, in the tiny town of King City, Mo., has become the farming community’s top (only?) tourist attraction, according to the Kansas City Star.

The site was formally dedicated in September, with 27 turbines spread over 6,000 acres, some as tall as 262 feet. Since then, tourists have been flocking to the site, bringing much-needed tourism dollars, and farmers receive $3,000 every year for each turbine on their land. The city of just 1,000 people is even mulling a $250,000 visitors center, including a viewing area and theater.

“It sure is a novelty, seeing those big ol’ windmills out there turning,” said King City’s mayor Jim Gillespie. “We’ve embraced it.”

The best part of the article: a handy diagram comparing the size of the windmills to other well-known tourist attractions, including the Statue of Liberty (305 feet) and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis (630 feet).