I slid up the ramp of the I-35 toll road, pausing briefly to catch the ticket the cheerful, blue-shirted man held out the window of the toll booth. My stomach gurgled, complaining about the Mickey D’s double cheeseburger I’d ingested half an hour prior. The underthigh of my right leg was cramping, and a dull ache knotted at the base of my neck unless I rolled my shoulders every three minutes or so, making me look like someone out of a Richard Simmons workout. Or a reject from a Ricky Martin music video.
Ah, road-tripping. That maddening, perilous, oh-so-traditional pastime of Labor Day weekend. Like a dutiful sister-slash-sister-in-law, I was headed to the heart of Kansas to visit my brother and his wife for the holiday.
The first CD I ever bought was Shawn Colvin’s A Few Small Repairs, which I listened faithfully to until I accidentally left it on the TGV to Paris. Track eight was a song called “Wichita Skyline,” and while I had not yet then been to the Great Plains, I was captivated by the wistfulness of the lyrics coupled with her throaty-yet-little-girlish voice.
And then I moved to the Great Plains, and took a road trip to Colorado, and as the flat, flat land unrolled on every side, I crunched myself into the back seat, horrified, expecting tumbleweeds to blow across the road at any second. Yes, what I had been forewarned about was true—driving across Kansas was about as exciting as watching toast being made.
Hence my trepidation as I headed west out of Kansas City. For the first two hours, it was … not a lot different than driving through Michigan. And then I approached the toll road, where the flattening horizon rose up to meet me, and I figured the hour and a half until I arrived at my destination would seem like three years.
But not two miles onto the toll road, the road twisted and took a low dip. And, suddenly, on all sides of my little red Ford Escort, the Great Plains opened around me.
There were no billboards. No speed limit signs posted, so even though I was driving close to eighty-five, I was passed like I was standing still (a warm and welcoming switch from KCMO, where everyone drives five miles under the speed limit and takes up two lanes of traffic). And it was flat, so flat, a fact made even more jarring because there were no trees. No trees that looked alive, that is—I saw several leafless, clawing, twiggish things, curled over by the force of the winds that continually whip through (and almost blow your car off the road). No telephone wires, either. And the sky, the sky, doming above and dusted with clouds, darkened every so often by a hawk winging lazily in search of breakfast.
As Ms. Colvin says, everything else just seemed like a million miles away. And it was beautiful.
Not beautiful in the obvious, eyes-widen-heart-stop-deep-indrawn-breath sort of way, like the white stucco of a Mediterranean village or a coquette strutting by with thigh-high boots and a pout so full it’s a wonder she doesn’t trip over it. It was softer. Quieter.
If you don’t look closely, you’ll never see how the powder-blue sky perfectly compliments the verdigris of the grass, nor how the cream-puff clouds deepen the bowl of the sky until you’re staring, staring, and feeling completely encompassed by the vastness of it all. That’s the type of beauty that makes you suck in air between your teeth and hold it, just a little, so it sort of aches your chest.
Forget the ocean. Forget the mountains. I’ll happily take the plains that the settlers trekked across, chasing the dream of something more. Bumping and jarring their way through weeds and land so flat, the horizon looked painted. Where shade was a rarity. Where there was no shelter, so when a twister ripped through, you hunkered down and prayed.
No, driving across Kansas does not rank high on my list of thrilling things to do. But give me a long drive to a plane ride any day. Because it is beautiful—becoming the flat, fine line of the Wichita skyline.
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