“Despina,” Italo Calvino writes in his masterpiece (well, one of them anyway) Invisible Cities, “can be reached in two ways: by ship or by camel. The city displays one face to the traveler arriving overland and a different one to him who arrives by sea.” The camel driver sees “a ship; he knows it is a city, but he thinks of it as a vessel that will take him away from the desert,” while the sailor “thinks of it as a camel from whose pack hang wine-skins and bags of candied fruit, date wine, tobacco leaves, and already he sees himself at the head of a long caravan taking him away from the desert of the sea.” “Each city,” Calvino concludes, “receives its form from the desert it opposes.”
In a sense, the town is an anti-fulcrum, with the oppositional forces recasting its identity according to the needs they inspire. A town’s merits are forever at the mercy of a traveler’s subjective whims, compounded all the more so by the surrounding geography.
I arrived in Cimarron just after noon on Monday. The walk from Dodge City was smooth, mostly following soft dirt roads parallel to the railroad. Cimarron was my first proper break of the day, sitting at the lone table inside a Phillips 66 gas station and drinking a 32-ounce root beer while two staffers labored intensely to restock the beer case behind me. Cimarron had more to offer–a supermarket, an old-fashioned soda fountain, and plenty of restaurants–but it’s position in my itinerary stripped those of their relevance. I had one more stop planned for food, but water resupplies would otherwise be limited and the constant wind was desiccating, and so I needed to hydrate aggressively. That was Cimarron’s purpose.
That second stop was Ingalls, a smaller town some two hours onward. Once again, I followed the soft dirt road, filling my shoes with dust–I could feel the grimy friction between my toes by this point. While the wind was relentless, it carried the virtue of heat relief, and I was content to make that trade-off at the expense of chapped lips. Before I knew it, Ingalls coalesced around me; a building sat just off to the left with CAFE in giant letters, covering the wall. I turned the corner with enthusiasm, ready for two or three greasy spoons’ worth of calories, only to discover that the cafe had gone out of business. Paint on the window promises that they’ll be open again soon, but not soon enough for me!
Ingalls was the last town on today’s itinerary; more dry fields extend for 16 miles from here, leading to Pierceville, which offers no facilities. The next chance for a bite doesn’t come until Garden City, tomorrow’s destination. For me, Ingalls was the last port before an extended voyage, a place I had counted on for resupply. When it failed in that capacity, it smacked of betrayal and I was internally prepared to strip it from the map.
I wandered around town, finding my way to the co-op. Co-ops have been a fixture of my walk through Kansas, often built around giant grain elevators where members store their bounty. Most have a coke machine, which can be quite a virtue on a hot, dry walk. The Ingalls Co-op actually boasts three soda machines, along with one for snacks. Who needs a cafe when you can have a can of Mug root beer and a strawberry Pop-Tart, plus a bruised banana from the backpack? (I hope this trip doesn’t give me diabetes.)
Thoroughly satiated, I headed south out of town, only to stop soon after at the modest Santa Fe Trail Museum. The host quickly explained to me that it was really a town museum. “When people die, their kids clean out their houses and then share some of their possessions with us.” As such, it’s an eclectic mix of war memorabilia, old business supplies, and regional paraphernalia, without too much specifically devoted to the trail. It’s a cemetery of a different sort, showing the town’s collective history through the possessions of its last few generations of residents. It was a quick visit, but an important reminder that the identity I ascribe to a town, based on my very specific needs, is neither representative nor fair. It’s noble and high-minded to think that visiting a place will allow one to know it on its own terms, but we are always imprisoned by our own perspective and particularly by our base needs. Has walking across Kansas helped me to better understand Kansas, or to simply better appreciate the places that could offer me comfort or refreshment?
On Tuesday, I fought my way through the walk to Garden City. Despite being wonderfully short thanks to the 40 miles I churned out on Monday, every step was a struggle. It was a striking difference; whereas I had enjoyed an easy, painless walk on the previous day’s long march, today’s just sucked from beginning to end.
This, however, is what prompted my reflection on Calvino. As I have found my rhythm on the ADT, I’ve settled into a simple routine. On camping days, I go all day, from pre-dawn to dusk, stopping for breaks but otherwise walking for thirteen hours or so. I walk without urgency, without pace. I have no target destination. The goal is simply to make it as far as the day allows. By contrast, on hotel days I have far greater urgency. The preceding camping day has positioned me for an early arrival and I push the pace, hoping to fully capitalize on the opportunity. My day’s “work” doesn’t end with the walk, but rather kicks into phase two. I have multiple days of clothes to hand-wash, blog posts to write, some school work to take care of, and hopefully a chance to explore town. Plus, there are always some assorted odds and ends, like washing off the tent in the shower (a delicate operation, to be sure).
The day’s destination–and more specifically my sleeping plans–becomes the lens through which I see the walk, shaping every aspect of the experience.
Today’s destination, other than a hotel, was Garden City. The city leaders can be forgiven for sticking with this misleading town name; it’s more inspiring to visitors than “Slaughter Town,” which would be a more accurate approach. It’s one of the most ethnically diverse cities in Kansas, thanks to those meat-packing plants and other industrial activity (I walked past dozens of turbine blades on my final approach). As of 2015, it was home to residents from 35 different countries.
At a time when immigration has become a subject of increasingly divisive rhetoric, Garden City stands out as an example of how harmonious and amicable this process can be. Indeed, a recent film produced about the town, Strangers in Town, highlights its success (you can watch the full 33-minute film online). This wasn’t an accident. The filmmaker, Stephen Lerner, said that, “One thing that’s clear is that there was a group of people in the city government, the law enforcement community, the schools (and) the religious community that made an explicit decision to make this work in their town.”
What makes this story more impressive to me is the fact that it was able to absorb and transform an ugly incident that could have been a horrific event. In 2016, a plot to bomb an apartment complex housing dozens of Somali Muslim immigrants was foiled the day after the presidential election. None of the aspiring bombers were from Garden City; they specifically wanted to strike the town because of its reputation. In response, the town rallied in support of its Somali immigrants, making it clear that they were a welcomed part of the community.
It’s easy to be dismissive or cynical. I was quick to make jokes about the town name and its contrary functions. As someone walking into town, it was easy to be put off by the industrial sprawl. Like Despina, though, it’s misleading to let Garden City’s identity be shaped by transitory outsiders, when its residents have worked so hard to make something more powerful bloom.
