Leave it to Lynn Bartels to pine away for the open prairie – while visiting Aspen. But then, the longtime Colorado political reporter turned communications director for the Secretary of State’s Office was just ditto-ing the sentiment of a county clerk from the state’s eastern plains after both attended this week’s Colorado County Clerks Association summer conference in Snowmass Village near Aspen.

Bartels blogs:

Yuma County Clerk Beverly Wenger wrote about her visit to the Aspen area on Facebook Wednesday.

“It is just peaceful and beautiful! Truly a creation of God’s,” she said.

“Still love my plains though! Nothing beats wheat and cornfields, fresh turned dirt, the incredible sunrises and sunsets and the wide open country!!”

I know exactly how Wenger feels. I grew up in eastern South Dakota and I always feel so hemmed in when I’m in the mountains.

Bartels goes on to recount a long-ago story assignment from her days at the Rocky Mountain News in which she was sent out to Colorado’s plains, only to learn after making it to Burlington that the story was a bust. When called home, she had no regrets:

“It was so green and so beautiful. The corn is really coming along,” I gushed after my trip along Interstate 70.

You can take a Bartels out of eastern South Dakota, but you can’t take the eastern South Dakota out of a Bartels.

Be sure to tune in to Bartels blog for regular updates and insights from the Secretary of State’s Office – along with the occasional reverie.