Location Taken: Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho
Time Taken: June 2010
That’s it, 537 posts under my non-existent belt and I’ve run out of ideas, it’s as blank as a wasteland here in my mind.
…Although, now that I mention it…
Wasteland is an odd sort of concept. Most wastelands aren’t blank, for one thing. They’re called wastelands because it’s land that’s too difficult to work, or has horrible soil chemistry, or one of the many other reasons that make it so we humans can’t use it. It’s a waste of good real estate is what it is, all these rocks and hills and whatnot.
For a very long time, wastelands were just ignored. You went around them, found some other piece of land that was a lot nicer. A few of them got attention after some mineral or another was found below them, but those are fairly rare. But at some point, someone looked at one of those forlorn wastelands and went “You know, that’s actually kinda pretty.”
And well, now we have tons of places that charge admittance to go see a pile of rocks or the like. It’s a big industry, brings in the tourist dollars, ya know. It’s tough to find a place that’s a true wasteland these days. It’s all either being used for some industry or another, or it’s got a price tag at the front gate.
Well, or it’s way out in the boonies. There’s still plenty of boonies out there, after all.
Such an odd word, boonies, now that I think about it…
Boonies is the kind of silly word your parents use. It is a cute diminutive of boondocks.
The online dictionaries say that boondocks is from Tagalog bundok, meaning mountain.
I had heard–I guess it is a false etymology–that boondocks was named after shipping docks built outside of town. They were called boon because it was less expensive to moor there. Hence, boondocks came to mean “out of town.” That etymology made sense in Michigan, where a lot of slang came from the Great Lakes shipping industry.
Thus, whenever I said, “out in the boonies,” to you, I thought I was teaching you Michigan slang.