Day 54 – Holly to Lamar, CO
My rampant enthusiasm for snow days has become a running joke at school; few things–if any, really–fire me up more than a couple inches of snow blanketing town. There’s an aesthetic aspect of this, as crunching through the flakes in the deadened muffle of a snowy night is unlike anything else. There’s the joy of […]
Day 53 – Syracuse, KS to Holly, CO
On my last day in Kansas, I spent a lot of time thinking about water. I hadn’t seen much of it for a while. Aside from the occasional lake, and the gradually filling Arkansas River, the view was dominated by pale yellow and brown. By all accounts, this has been an unusually wet year for […]
Day 52 – Lakin to Syracuse, KS
I left Garden City early in the morning on Wednesday. This far west in the central time zone (the end of my time there, as I crossed into the mountain zone today), it’s dark until 7:30am, so my 5:45 start meant a couple hours of darkness. Part of the benefit of an early start, usually, […]
Day 51 – Garden City to Lakin, KS
Rick doesn’t waste any time. “I sure as hell hope you’re not a Democrat.” Portland’s reputation precedes it. “I love Trump,” he says, “and I know you probably think less of me for that.” I insist that my goal in being here is to talk with people who see things differently than I do, to […]
Days 49 & 50 – Ingalls & Garden City
“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 […]
Days 47 & 48 – Fort Larned & Dodge City
For all of the signs announcing the historical trajectory of the Santa Fe Trail along my last two weeks of walking, outside of Council Grove the extant remnants of that past have often been quite minimal. I’m sure part of the responsibility for that is on me; I’m not going to make a multi-mile detour […]
Day 46 – Great Bend to Larned, KS
I have been, very gradually, working my way uphill across Kansas. Ottawa stands at 900 feet, Council Grove at 1230. McPherson hit 1500 feet, while Great Bend climbed up another 350. This ascent, if you can call it that, has been indiscernible in the walk, obscured by Kansas’s implacable flatness, but it’s far from over. […]
Day 45 – Lyons to Great Bend, KS
“Crackheads,” muttered Richard disparagingly, as two younger locals walked into Kat’s Korner in Chase, Kansas. I encountered Richard soon after strolling into the gas station mini-mart, as he lounged in a booth just inside the door. I grabbed a coffee and joined him, as he was eager to chat while waiting on his biscuits and […]
Day 44 – McPherson to Lyons, KS
First faucet? Padlocked shut. Second faucet? Ditto. Third? Same story. Bathrooms are locked tight, too. I’m in the municipal park in Windom, a surprisingly lovely place in this village, nestled among freshly plowed fields, and I’m fresh out of water. A preservative-rich bagel with peanut butter blends together like mortar in my parched mouth, but […]
Days 42 & 43 – Herington to McPherson, KS
Everybody wants to tell me I’m going the wrong way. The most recent example of this takes place in Tampa, Kansas, a village tucked alongside a train line, surrounded by expansive farms. I had just given up hope of making it to Durham, the next town, in time for lunch when I am pleasantly surprised […]