Organic Farm Author: Farmer is flying

Chapter 69: Self-driving

At nine o'clock in the evening, after a more than hour-long flight, Tagawa arrived at the New York airport. When he picked up his luggage and exited the airport, the car from the booked hotel was already waiting in front of the door. He came to New York for a very simple purpose: to buy Apple stock. It's 1995, and Apple without Jobs is on the verge of bankruptcy, and Apple's stock price has fallen to an all-time low of less than $20 a share. This is the perfect time to buy. Steve Jobs is about to return to Apple this year, and Apple will see a crazy rise in its stock price. As a reborn person who can predict the future, he happened to come to the United States at this time, and it would be intolerable if he didn't buy some Apple stock.

After checking in at the hotel, Tagawa called and asked for dinner delivered to the room. He had exercised a lot this afternoon, and dinner had dragged on so late, he was already so hungry that he had his chest on his chest, and he wanted a lot of dinner, which was enough for two people. After a full meal, Tagawa recalled tomorrow's itinerary, if the stock buying went smoothly tomorrow morning, he would visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the afternoon, and if it was too late, he would have to eat a good meal and fly directly to California. But buying Apple shares is a task that must be completed, and if it can't be done tomorrow, then the stay in New York will have to be extended and the time in California will have to be compressed.

Early the next morning, he sent his hotel car to the New York Stock Exchange to open his trading account. Looking at Apple's stock price trading records a while ago, I found that the stock price has been slowly and steadily declining, without much fluctuation. And the volume of transactions is gradually increasing, which is clearly a sign of further decline, and the situation remains unchanged today.

Before coming to the United States, Tian Chuan had less than 20 million yuan in cash in his hand, and in order to buy stocks this time, he borrowed 1.5 billion yuan from Qi Gang personally with the mortgage of the famous paintings he kept in Qi Gang's art company, and converted all of them into US dollars, about 20 million US dollars, and brought them all to the United States. After spending a little more than $1 million on agricultural machinery and other items in the United States for a few days, he plans to buy 18 million of the remaining $19 million into shares in Apple. These shares represent a small percentage of Apple's stock market, and they don't even make much of a splash in the stock market, but they are the biggest investment he has ever made, and it can be called an all-or-nothing bet.

He was cautious in the process of buying Apple shares, for fear that he would be too eager to buy the stock price by tens of millions of dollars and cause losses to himself. But as time went on, he found that his own money was nothing in the New York Stock Exchange, and the market seemed to have a silent mouth, quietly swallowing the $18 million he brought, while Apple's stock price seemed to have no feeling, still slowly declining there.

Before eleven o'clock, Tagawa's purchase task was completed. He withdrew directly from the stock market and did not pay attention to the trend of the stock, as a long-term gold investment project, he would not sell the stock, and the stock price fluctuations temporarily lost his meaning.

After leaving the stock exchange, Tagawa walked along Wall Street to Citibank, where he rented a locker and deposited his account opening documents and trading cards for the stock exchange.

Then he walked towards Central Park. After buying beef burgers, burritos, fried chicken, and a large bottle of Coke at a fast-food restaurant on the side of the road, he found a bench in the park, put the food on the bench, and started his lunch.

Take a break after dinner, hail a cab, and take yourself to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Metropolitan Museum is very large, and if you visit it carefully, you may not be able to walk it in two days, and if Tagawa wants to paint again, it will take even longer. So, he just wanted to take a casual stroll and feel the artistic atmosphere in the exhibits today.

Tagawa's main object of visit is still painting, especially classical oil painting, and he will experience the creative techniques in it. He has been studying oil painting for several months, but he still has no sense of the use of color, and he hopes to find inspiration in the paintings of the classical masters during the visit.

In this way, I immersed myself in the paintings, carefully appreciating, observing, and experiencing them one by one, and simulating the color and brushwork methods of the masters in their hearts. Before you know it, it's time to close. At the urging of the security personnel, Tagawa left the museum.

This day in New York was a simple and quick itinerary, and Tagawa had no desire to visit, just wanted to go to California immediately to experience the wilderness of the West.

Tagawa took a flight in the evening across the entire United States, from New York, the largest city in the United States, on the east coast, to Los Angeles, the second largest city on the west coast, a distance of 4,000 kilometers in a straight line, with a flight time of up to six hours.

His flight departed at 7 p.m. and arrived in Los Angeles six hours later at 10 p.m., because of the three-hour time difference between the two places. It is still the hotel's special car to pick up the airport and go back to the hotel for dinner.

After staying overnight in Los Angeles, Tagawa set off the next morning in a rented SUV and headed north along Route 5. He will travel through California's Central Valley to Oakland, located in the middle of the San Francisco Bay across the ocean from San Francisco, after a three-day trip.

Along the way, he will examine the irrigation system and crop sales in the Central Valley, the most agriculturally developed region on the West Coast of the United States.

From Los Angeles, drive through the mountain roads of the Coast Mountains and into the southern end of the Central Valley. Despite the support of an irrigation system, the southern end of the valley shows signs of dryness. The crops on the flat land are not continuous, but a grain and a fruit tree separated from each other. Tagawa had already learned from the information he had found in advance that this was a method used to better protect against wind and sand and to maintain soil fertility. When he looked closer, he noticed that many of the trees had drip irrigation pipes laid underneath, and the precious water source was being poured under the roots of the trees without wasting it.

After the orchard, when we came to a wheat field, the wheat seedlings that were being jointed were also being watered, and the wheat field could not be drip irrigated, so the method of sprinkler irrigation was adopted. The water is piped into the wheat field and sprayed through the sprinkler heads. The sprinkler head is pushed by the water pressure and rotates constantly.

Walking along the way, Tian Chuan can clearly see that the land that should have been dry has sprouted vigorous vitality under the irrigation of developed water conservancy projects and irrigation systems, and patches of rice fields, wheat fields, fruit trees, and vegetable gardens have spread throughout the valley. Wire fences, wooden fences, trees, and ditches divide the land into farms.

Every certain distance, a straight canal flows. Seeing the well-developed water conservancy project, Tian Chuan couldn't help but think that before the construction of the water conservancy project, this valley used to be a semi-desert area, with few surface plants, let alone farming. In just a few decades, it has become a world-famous grain-producing area.

He has never been to the Hetao area in China, and it is said that it is also a fertile soil formed by the irrigation of the Yellow River, but he does not know what the irrigation system there is like? The saying that "the Yellow River is harmful to all kinds, and only one set of profits" has been passed down for thousands of years, and it is completely conceivable that the irrigation system has had a huge impact on the dry loess land.

Walking all the way and looking all the way, without conducting a detailed investigation or interview, just a general browsing, Tagawa felt very relaxed. Walking, staying in a hotel, dining, and occasionally stopping to take pictures on the way, time passed quickly, and in a blink of an eye, he had completed the planned three-day trip to California, and came to the end of the road trip, Oakland.

Tagawa didn't stop in Auckland and flew directly to Billings in Montana. Tagawa continued the previous style and arrived in Billings at night. When you get off the plane, the first thing you feel is the freshness and coldness of the air. Compared to the warmer California of California, the season in Montana is still in winter, with nighttime temperatures as low as minus five or six degrees, and spring is still very far away.

Billings is the largest city in Montana with a population of only 70,000. In other words, Montana covers an area of 380,000 square kilometers and has a total population of 900,000, with an average of less than three people per square kilometer. You may not have any intuitive concept of this number, but we might as well compare it with China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which is known for its vast land and sparsely populated population, with a total area of 1.18 million square kilometers and a population of 25 million, with an average of more than 20 people per square kilometer, a difference of nearly 10 times.

It was still the hotel car that picked him up, but the model changed from a Lincoln in Los Angeles to a Ford Raptor.

The next morning, Tagawa stayed in Billings for half a day to buy winter clothes and a set of camping supplies, food, etc., and he prepared to drive from Billings to Helena, the capital of Montana. In case of an accident on the road and not being rescued, he needs to prepare some necessary items.

At the outdoor store, he discovers that guns and bullets turn out to be a major category of goods. It seems that Montana is the most pro-private gun state in the United States, and it is true.

Seeing him looking at the gun, the shopkeeper asked, "Do you want to buy a gun?" Tagawa told the shopkeeper what he needed. When the shopkeeper heard that he was going to drive to Helena, he showed a hearty expression and said, "It's only more than 200 miles to Helena, and now you can drive and go there and have lunch, and you don't need to prepare anything special." ”

Ray's Tagawa, Montana's peculiar way of speaking, was stunned for a moment, and he explained: "I'm here for a tour, and I'm going to spend a day and a half on the road, and I'm going to arrive at Helena tomorrow evening, so I want to prepare something." ”

The owner said, "In that case, you'll need warm clothes and pants, and snow boots." Also, bring an alcohol stove and pots, as well as food. He looked at Tagawa and said, "Guns and hunting knives are also necessary, they can keep you safe when you encounter wolves or other dangers." ”

Tian Chuan stretched out his hands helplessly: "I'm a foreigner, can I sell guns?"

The shopkeeper shrugged his shoulders regretfully and said, "Then there is no way, bring an axe, at least you can get some psychological comfort." ”

Finally, at the suggestion of the shopkeeper, Tagawa bought clothes, canned food, bread, an alcohol stove, a pot set, a Swiss army knife, a hunting knife, a thick blanket, a lighter, drinking water, a map, and a whole bunch of miscellaneous things.

Tagawa put these things in the back seat of a rented Ford Raptor and, guided by the owner, drove the car to the "shopping street", which is actually a market built for the convenience of out-of-town tourists, with some specialty shops selling things such as denim and Indian handicrafts. There are not many shops, only a dozen, and Tagawa spent less than an hour walking around inside.

He wanted to buy some distinctive souvenirs and give them back, but found that many of the things in them were produced in factories, so he lost his interest in buying.

After a casual meal at a fast-food restaurant, Tagawa drove off his journey in Montana.

Instead of taking the highway in good condition, he planned to drive north from Billings, along the country road, to Glaslanch, 200 kilometers away, and then a few dozen kilometers west to the small town of Lewiston, where he would spend the night. Tomorrow continue west, driving 200 kilometers all the way to Great Rapids, then turning south and walking another 150 kilometers to Helena to end your Montana tour.

Out of the more modern Billings, Tagawa felt as if he had entered a completely new country. The blue sky is full of white clouds, the vast expanse is an endless grassland, and occasionally a herd of cattle and sheep can be seen grazing the dead grass under the snow on the withered pastures of winter. There are almost no people in sight on the endless grassland, which looks desolate and peaceful.

There are very few cars on the road, and only one can be seen every once in a while. After driving for a while, away from Billings, I didn't see a car for a long time. Tagawa turned on the radio in the car, and it seemed that if he didn't play country music, he didn't feel like he was traveling or living in the west. What is playing on the radio is John Denver's Take me home, country road, such a classic old song, with a strong western feeling, so that Tagawa is immersed in it, and he can't help but hum along.

Almost heaven ,west Virginia.

Blue ridge mountain, Shenandoah river.

Life is old there,older than the trees.

Younger than the mountains, growing by the breeze.

Country road, take me home.

To the place I belong.

West Virginia, mountain mama

……

The lyrics are concise and pure, and the singing voice is simple and beautiful, which is shocking. Tagawa liked this song very much in his previous life, but he simply liked its beautiful melody. At this time, the desolate land of the western United States sounded a completely different mood from the previous life.

The song evoked a deep sense of homesickness in him. The beautiful scenery outside the car window no longer seemed to attract his attention, and he just wanted to hurry back to China, to his hometown, to his chicken farm, to his parents.

The deeper you step on the accelerator, the faster you go. When he arrived at Glassland, he did not stop and turned directly to Lewiston to the west. When I arrived in Lewiston, it was just three o'clock in the afternoon. He thought that he might be able to reach Helen tonight, but reason prevented him from impulsively. The plane ticket to return to China at noon the day after tomorrow has been booked, and Professor Zhao has already agreed to meet in San Francisco tomorrow night, even if he is already at San Francisco International Airport, he will not be able to arrive a minute early.