Centering
It's a day and a half until polls close. my brother and i have been talking back and forth and analyzing everything to death. i am absolutely useless as a teacher today. Tomorrow will be worse. If we are up late on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning waiting for a call on who our next president is, i will be pretty useless Wednesday too. i am not going to bed until i know who will be inaugurated in January.
i have been feeling this way for days, essentially counting days and hours until tomorrow. i even numbered the days on my wall calender from about a month ago. So this weekend i decided i needed a little bit of centering. i have not had the luxury for a few months now, not since my Southwest trip, to think. Just think. And feel. And wonder. So, to center myself for this election, i headed to Lebanon, Kansas.
Lebanon is a little over 200 miles from Wichita, due north and then a little west. With gas prices around here back under $2, and a fresh paycheck in the bank, i decided to make the trip. Lebanon is the perfect place to center yourself for an election because it is literally the center of the continental US.
i woke up around 8 and had a few errands to take care of, like paying rent and finishing the mix tape i made for the road (yes, my truck still has a tape deck). These things started slowing me down and i didn't get out the door until around 10. But once on the road i was quickly at home. It was a gorgeous weekend. Highs in the low 70s and whispy cloudy skies. On my way out of the city i listened to all my backlogged Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me... episodes, but once i cleared Salina and left the highway, i switched to the tunes. my first stop was the little known Rock City outside of Minneapolis, KS.
Kansas used to be the bottom of a large inland sea. In fact there are many places in Kansas where you can go to find marine fossils. This strikes people as odd sometimes, but it is quite demonstrable. These sandstone concretions are left over from that time period. They are tremendous formations!! It's difficult to illustrate this without anyone to pose in front to the rocks. (i should go ahead and say now that i was the only one at three of my five destinations on Saturday.) To correct for this, i took a photograph with my truck in the background:
Rock city is a lot smaller than i thought it would be, but is rather impressive, though perhaps only to us science types. Here's another one i thought was cool due to its near spherical shape:
Next i was off to the Center. i went through the charming little towns of Concordia and Belleville, then turned west on US 36 and some very lonely country with more cattle than people. Half an hour brought me to KS 181 where i turned north and found the town of Lebanon.
It seems that Kansas towns, like pets, come to resemble the places after which they are named. Where Minneapolis, KS, seemed to take on the manicured prosperity of Minnesota, Lebanon looked like a war-torn town falling on even harder times. Most of the homes were pretty shoddy, but there were an awful lot of trucks and what seemed like a decent city center. To be fair, i never did follow the sign pointing out Lebanon's "business district."
A little north of the town is KS 191, a road built with only the purpose of carrying people to the geographic center. i was the only one here too. Unimaginable.
Right at the spot is a stone monument. i was there. At the center of continental America. Three days before the most historic election of my lifetime. i sat and i tried to feel the extent of our country on all sides of me. i thought of all the diversity of people going about their lives, working, playing with their children, having sex, reading on their porches, facing death, being born... i thought about all the people i know all over this country, from California to Oklahoma to South Carolina to Pennsylvania. i thought about how many of our lives have interwined, abided, slipped away, or just missed. It was quiet, with a gentle breeze and nothing moving but the cattle on a far hillside. i did not see another human being.
A little ways from the monument is a small chapel that holds about six people or so. It's called the Center Chapel. And behind that is an old motel. i guess people used to come and stay here. It looks like it's been closed since the early 80s or so, though. Perhaps due to the movement of the actual center of the US to Belle Foursche, SD when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union in '59.
Here is what you see looking back along KS 191 (which, for some reason, Google Maps calls US 191) toward the town of Lebanon.
And that's Kansas for you. The center of it all and yet absolutely nothing at all. Or at least, nothing if you want something. If nothing is what you're looking for, Kansas has it all. This kind of openness is what i will miss about Kansas when i leave it in a couple of years.
The other thing i will miss is stumbling upon oddities. i left Lebanon and headed south on KS 181, then took US 24 back east. i planned to cross my northbound path and go on to Manhattan, KS to shop at a particular book store that i love. But on US 24 i found myself driving through downtown Cawker City.
i went all the way through the town but something was nagging at me. i knew i had heard of Cawker City. i had read about it somewhere and there was something i was missing. So i turned around and picked my way back through the town, looking for something that i somehow knew i didn't want to miss. And sure enough, i had read about Cawker city in a book on Kansas Superlatives. It is home to the world's larges ball of sisal twine. How glad i am that i did not miss this!!
And man, i really wanted to stay here at the Ball of Twine Inn, but alas, there was no vacancy, so i pressed on.
i did make it to Manhattan, which is just a beautiful area of Kansas, and bought the new Family Guy and the first season of Big Bang. The drive home was fantastic. Sunset on the red flint hills is just gorgeous. And i didn't think i was going to, but 11 hours after setting out, i managed to make it back to Wichita in time to meet some friends for a haunted house. After that? The Blair Witch Project at one of their homes. Finally, i have found not just another human being who likes that movie but 5!!
i think i found my center. Again.
i have been feeling this way for days, essentially counting days and hours until tomorrow. i even numbered the days on my wall calender from about a month ago. So this weekend i decided i needed a little bit of centering. i have not had the luxury for a few months now, not since my Southwest trip, to think. Just think. And feel. And wonder. So, to center myself for this election, i headed to Lebanon, Kansas.
Lebanon is a little over 200 miles from Wichita, due north and then a little west. With gas prices around here back under $2, and a fresh paycheck in the bank, i decided to make the trip. Lebanon is the perfect place to center yourself for an election because it is literally the center of the continental US.
i woke up around 8 and had a few errands to take care of, like paying rent and finishing the mix tape i made for the road (yes, my truck still has a tape deck). These things started slowing me down and i didn't get out the door until around 10. But once on the road i was quickly at home. It was a gorgeous weekend. Highs in the low 70s and whispy cloudy skies. On my way out of the city i listened to all my backlogged Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me... episodes, but once i cleared Salina and left the highway, i switched to the tunes. my first stop was the little known Rock City outside of Minneapolis, KS.
Kansas used to be the bottom of a large inland sea. In fact there are many places in Kansas where you can go to find marine fossils. This strikes people as odd sometimes, but it is quite demonstrable. These sandstone concretions are left over from that time period. They are tremendous formations!! It's difficult to illustrate this without anyone to pose in front to the rocks. (i should go ahead and say now that i was the only one at three of my five destinations on Saturday.) To correct for this, i took a photograph with my truck in the background:
Rock city is a lot smaller than i thought it would be, but is rather impressive, though perhaps only to us science types. Here's another one i thought was cool due to its near spherical shape:
Next i was off to the Center. i went through the charming little towns of Concordia and Belleville, then turned west on US 36 and some very lonely country with more cattle than people. Half an hour brought me to KS 181 where i turned north and found the town of Lebanon.
It seems that Kansas towns, like pets, come to resemble the places after which they are named. Where Minneapolis, KS, seemed to take on the manicured prosperity of Minnesota, Lebanon looked like a war-torn town falling on even harder times. Most of the homes were pretty shoddy, but there were an awful lot of trucks and what seemed like a decent city center. To be fair, i never did follow the sign pointing out Lebanon's "business district."
A little north of the town is KS 191, a road built with only the purpose of carrying people to the geographic center. i was the only one here too. Unimaginable.
Right at the spot is a stone monument. i was there. At the center of continental America. Three days before the most historic election of my lifetime. i sat and i tried to feel the extent of our country on all sides of me. i thought of all the diversity of people going about their lives, working, playing with their children, having sex, reading on their porches, facing death, being born... i thought about all the people i know all over this country, from California to Oklahoma to South Carolina to Pennsylvania. i thought about how many of our lives have interwined, abided, slipped away, or just missed. It was quiet, with a gentle breeze and nothing moving but the cattle on a far hillside. i did not see another human being.
A little ways from the monument is a small chapel that holds about six people or so. It's called the Center Chapel. And behind that is an old motel. i guess people used to come and stay here. It looks like it's been closed since the early 80s or so, though. Perhaps due to the movement of the actual center of the US to Belle Foursche, SD when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union in '59.
Here is what you see looking back along KS 191 (which, for some reason, Google Maps calls US 191) toward the town of Lebanon.
And that's Kansas for you. The center of it all and yet absolutely nothing at all. Or at least, nothing if you want something. If nothing is what you're looking for, Kansas has it all. This kind of openness is what i will miss about Kansas when i leave it in a couple of years.
The other thing i will miss is stumbling upon oddities. i left Lebanon and headed south on KS 181, then took US 24 back east. i planned to cross my northbound path and go on to Manhattan, KS to shop at a particular book store that i love. But on US 24 i found myself driving through downtown Cawker City.
i went all the way through the town but something was nagging at me. i knew i had heard of Cawker City. i had read about it somewhere and there was something i was missing. So i turned around and picked my way back through the town, looking for something that i somehow knew i didn't want to miss. And sure enough, i had read about Cawker city in a book on Kansas Superlatives. It is home to the world's larges ball of sisal twine. How glad i am that i did not miss this!!
And man, i really wanted to stay here at the Ball of Twine Inn, but alas, there was no vacancy, so i pressed on.
i did make it to Manhattan, which is just a beautiful area of Kansas, and bought the new Family Guy and the first season of Big Bang. The drive home was fantastic. Sunset on the red flint hills is just gorgeous. And i didn't think i was going to, but 11 hours after setting out, i managed to make it back to Wichita in time to meet some friends for a haunted house. After that? The Blair Witch Project at one of their homes. Finally, i have found not just another human being who likes that movie but 5!!
i think i found my center. Again.
posted by ellie at 08:24
2 Comments:
Welcome to the Flint Hills of Kansas! I enjoyed reading your profile.
Positive mention of the Flint Hills always gets my attention! Thanks!
So happy it brought me to your site. Hope you and your readers visit regularly.
Our 22 county Flint Hills Tourism Coalition, Inc. promotes visits to the Kansas Flint Hills – the website is: http://www.kansasflinthills.travel/
Best wishes!
Dr. Bill ;-)
Personal Blog: http://flinthillsofkansas.blogspot.com/
Will now wants to visit the center of the USA, so I guess we will be planning a trip in the next couple of years. However, I may pass on the big ball of twine.....what makes people decide to build that anyway?
Thanks for the pictures - I always learn something when I come here. :-)
Post a Comment
<< Home