A walk around the main ring

I've been working at Fermilab off and on for 25 years, and I've never taken the popular walk around the main ring. Last Thursday afternoon was warm and breezy, so after shift I decided to finally try it, and started out on the bike path. The clouds thickened, and the wind shook the praire grass, and it seemed a pleasant enough walk--until I noticed that the path seemed to quit at the D0 site, and the only path out of there went to the power transmission towers (which crackled nicely in the moist air).

Ah--light dawns--the path is on the inside of the ring! And so it proved: take the access road over the berm and there is main ring road, running around just inside the berm. It was getting pretty dim by this time, and flock after flock of geese came honking overhead to bed down on the cooling ponds.

It seemed a kind of anti-Mordor. On one side of the road are gravel parking lots next to blue or red buildings full of alien hummings, high tech gadgets and huge cabinets seen in the garish fluorescent light. On the other side--4 foot high prairie grass, with geese swimming in the cooling channel beyond; and beyond that more grass hissing in the wind with more waterfowl gently honking on further hidden ponds.