day 5: goodland, ks to des moines, ia

friday: deep rural america: god country. there was jesus in the wheat with a scepter of grain, jesus baring his thorned and flaming heart and exhorting our trust, jesus writ large on the barn-sides of the faithful, jesus on the windshields and in the storefronts, and a church for every soul’s temperament (here again the fine distinctions that are a perhaps a product of a generalized monotony native to the plains). one of the sites of worship called itself the church of the drunken brethren.

one thing kansas has no shortage of is dilapidated barns, but m had a certain feeling for them, and was happy they were left alone to shrug into themselves in their own time. trees grew through the roofs of some and others were vine-taken. they seemed possessed of a quiet and a sunlight. to stand in one and be stabbed through by mote-swirled sunlight and hear the shush of wings—here are your cathedrals, kansas, your jesus in the motes.

we passed a field of wind turbines, magnificent in their size and the relentless beat of their blades, and we passed a few squatty oil derricks, pumping away at the earth’s innards. we stopped for gas and made sandwiches, eating them behind an abandoned holiday inn on a patch of green.

on our way to kansas city, we saw a sign with directions to the brown v. board of education national historic site in topeka and immediately made the exit. the museum was converted from a formerly all-black elementary school, and the first thing we saw upon entering were signs mandating ‘white’ and ‘colored’. there is no feeling like the feeling of standing under such a culmination, the weight of all our history pressing against us. the school was well preserved and the museum installation modern and interactive. the video tunnel featuring the actual scenes of integrations was a brutal experience, reducing these travelers to a sorry state. in this narrow tunnel, four large flat screens looped footage of black students walking through narrow lanes of white protesters whose faces were spitting-mad with hatred, mad with violence. there was footage of white teenagers lynching man-sized black cloth dolls, footage of white citizens turning firehoses on black students, assaulting them. all of these things we have known occurred, and worse, in books, conceptually, but it is another thing to stand in its midst. watching the progress of the students, determined unto death to have what was theirs, we were half mlk and half malcolm x. this country through which we are moving has much to celebrate and much to atone for.

we left the museum slow and quiet and headed back to the interstate. as we made to put kansas behind us, r felt his lust for bbq gather momentum. this momentum was temporarily waylaid, however, by r’s indignation over the incontrovertible fact that a portion of the I70, so proud of being a part of the eisenhower interstate system (ike was from abilene, ks after all), was a toll road. we crossed the missouri river two dollars and fifteen cents poorer (r’s geography was a bit off when he claimed to be escorting m over the mississippi river, when in fact it was only the missouri. ‘good thing,’ m later said, ‘the missouri is no nation-maker’).

we found kansas city to be a bit desolate for a friday night. the river city outdoor shopping area featured a mouthwatering produce stand with grapes the size of ping pongs. winslow’s k-c style bbq beckoned us with its sweet smoky smells and live blues playing on the patio. r ordered the ‘pig out’ – a sampling of links, pulled pork, ribs, and ham – while m opted for the combo – which featured chicken wings, brisket and ribs - with corn casserole on the side. after being so excited for the food, we were a tad disappointed. ‘its nothing to write home about,” r said (even though he knew it would be featured on the blog and read at home, thus wholly defeating his pronouncement). we agreed that lucille’s restaurant in belmont shore, long beach was far better, and much more conveniently located, than this offering. the portions were, however, too generous for us to be able to eat every last bite, no matter how hard r tried to over-stuff himself.

we headed north for the first time in many hundreds of miles, heading up the 35 to des moines, iowa. we stopped for gas in cameron, mo where high test is the same price as regular: $2.42 a gallon. we headed to a dairy queen down the street for an evening treat and, for the first time on the trip, r felt ‘the stare’ – the feeling of being tapped as an outsider and therefore suspect. shrugging off the impulse to go beserk in the dining room just to prove their point, r took our order to go and we got back on the road for an evening trek to the capital.


also of special note: we are thrilled to hear from home of our new nephew, waylon ford, born at 5:18 in orange county, 8lbs, 10 oz, 21 inches! congratulations and love to wil, jo and hudson!