Dorothy, We’re Still in Kansas
On the Road Part 3
The eastern part of Kansas is hilly, so much so that one believes one can stand on the roof of the car and see clear across the state. We buckle in, adjust the rear view mirror, pray that the radio or disc player works, floor the pedal, and hunker down to daydreaming driving. Daydreaming driving begins after a hundred miles or so; cruising along at 85 mph with seemingly nothing to hit, the mind wanders. With the Parkinson’s I have to concentrate even harder, making certain I do not wander from lane to lane, but the mind is hypnotized by the monotony of the landscape. Even the billboards are few and far between. And the one we enjoyed the most, the large wooden screen that encouraged us to exit I-70 to see the World’s Largest Prairie Dog, is, alas, gone, Prairie Dog Town closing in 2014.
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock T.S. Eliot
During daydreaming driving, we measure our lives in waypoints on I-70, cities that roll on by providing the daydreaming driver with mini-goals. Topeka, there that’s done, Junction City, there, that’s done, Fort Riley (Home of the Big Red One Infantry Division), there, that’s done, and so it rolls on, measuring our lives by distance traveled, distance still to go, and cities yet to be traveled by, the dotted line dividing the lanes ticking off our progress like the rolling credits at the end of a never-ending movie, a rolling along into asphalt infinity…. And the dotted line dividing lanes slides like ocean waves by our car. Manhattan, Abilene, Salina, Ellsworth, Russell (which provided us with two Senators, Arlen Specter and Bob Dole.)… Near Wakeeney we are tempted to drop south on 283 and visit Dodge City, the Dodge City that filled our tv screens when we were growing up. I guess we hoped to catch a glimpse of Matt Dillion.
Driving vast distances changes one’s perspective on time and distance, both being compressed as the odometer increases. “Hey, Dodge City is only one hundred fifty miles south of us. What’s that? Two or at most three hours? What’s that compared to the six billion miles and five light years we have already driven?” But Matt Dillon and Doc and Miss Kitty will have to wait. Next trip…. or perhaps on the way home.
We stop at one rest area just east of Hays. We peeled ourselves off the seats of our Outback, and a wave of very warm prairie wind slaps our faces as we enter the stone building, the only structure presiding over the land around us.
On the rest area building is a plague commemorating a battle between settlers and the Kiowa. Hard to believe that anyone would shed blood over this landscape.
But I realize that my perspective on Kansas is narrow. Growing up in New Jersey, I was always hurt by people who only associated my state with the New Jersey Turnpike and what punctuated the land around it—oil refineries, factories, and pig farms. The Garden State? Really? They did not know the Jersey I knew, the rolling rustic hills of the western part of the state, the acres of woods I hunted and fished and the bucolic forested settings I still drive through on 287.
On our family trip to Yellowstone, we got off the interstate near Ogallala, Nebraska to see the wagon wheel ruts that were still there, ruts made by the travelers along the Oregon Trail. The topography changed dramatically from plains to almost a hard rock moonscape, clear blue lakes dotting a rugged topography. It became a fascinating diversion. So who am I to judge Kansas by what I see only from I-70? Hey, the state helps feed us all. That’s what those huge grain elevators are for.
We stop in Hays for a bite to eat. The efficient and friendly middle-aged waitress begins a conversation when she learns we are from Philadelphia.
“Wow, Philadelphia. You folks have come a long way.”
We nodded and sipped our coffee which was really good.
“I lived on a farm most of my life, just a ways east of here. My husband and I, after the kids grew up and moved off, decided to move to the big city, so here we are in Hays. It took a little gettin’ used to, ya know, urban life and all, but we like it. More coffee?”
After we depart the big city of Hays, we can almost smell Colorado. Goodland is on the border and we press on the accelerator. The sun begins to dip ahead of us as we leave Kansas, leave the acres and acres of tall and mighty Windmills that stand like sentries over the Sunflower State, leave the massive white grain elevators which seem to grow from the soil and dominate the landscape, leave the prairie. Farewell, Kansas. “Rock Chalk Jayhawks!!!” (Kansas University basketball yell) What that means, I have no idea…..Jumping Jayhawks!
