Crossing Kansas: A Hidden Gem of the American Road Trip
Kansas, often maligned by travelers as a monotonous expanse of nothingness, is actually a hidden gem of the American road trip. With vast open spaces, stunning sunsets, and a unique landscape, traversing Kansas can be a truly unforgettable experience.
I have lost count of how many times I have crossed the United States by car. Every interstate adventure has been a little different. But when I tell people about these trips, the first comment is almost always something like, “Ugh, but you have to drive across Kansas.” Take it from a guy who’s done it a dozen times: crossing Kansas is a blast.
The lighting of a Kansas sunset makes for truly golden car and portrait photos, and I’ll share some of my recent favorites throughout this little essay. But that’s just one aspect of what makes a Kansas crossover special.
Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Oklahoma share a similar land aesthetic of infinite flatness. But I think people are inclined to mention Kansas in this context because it’s in the middle of the contiguous United States. Traversing the Kansas section of I-70 is a long stretch of many a coast-to-coast road trip. Or maybe people remember it from The Wizard of Oz. I don’t know.
“It’s very boring,” they tell me. “There’s nothing to see”. On the contrary, my friends. You can see further, in more directions, from I-70 in Kansas than from any interstate on the East Coast.
Stop moaning! I’m serious: open spaces are something worth appreciating. Do you like to sit on the beach and look at the ocean? The wheat stalks swaying in the wind have a peaceful animation similar to waves in a calm sea.
Going through crop plains at a gallop on a highway is like traversing open water, except instead of having to be completely self-sufficient like you do in a boat, there are plenty of opportunities to slow down and grab fuel, snacks, or a short walk. approximately every hour.
Crossing Kansas feels epic. Your vehicle is a small insignificant boat that explores the depths of the heart of the country, launching towards an unattainable horizon under a huge sky. Speed limits are high and traffic is (usually) low. Boredom? I don’t understand. The overriding feeling I get speeding on I-70 between KC and Denver is one of reverence.
The Sunflower State is a cornerstone of our country, in an abstract geographic sense and in a very real functional sense. Wheat, corn, beef, and soybeans are important cogs in the American machine. And there’s nothing like spending a full day crossing a single state full of those things to help you appreciate their importance.
And finally, there are the sunsets.
California sunsets over the Pacific Ocean are spectacular. Watching the sun set between the Colorado Rocky Mountains is also something to behold. But there’s no place like Kansas to capture a sunset that categorically consumes your field of vision.
When there are no obstacles overhanging the horizon and there are huge fields of gold on the ground, a setting sun in Kansas sets the world ablaze in a way I haven’t seen anywhere else.
In the summer of 2007, a good friend and I took our first coast-to-coast drive. We loaded a 1988 Mitsubishi Starion turbo with tools, snacks, and parts, did an oil change, taped a clutch line (sketch), and then left Boston, Massachusetts for Los Angeles, California, where it would head. colleague.
That trip was my first experience in Kansas. It took us about two days to cross the state, but it took me almost no time to disagree with everyone who warned me about how boring I would be on that leg of the trip.
The novelty of the vastness of Kansas hit me deeply when I was 18; Almost every other highway I had traveled on was one of the congested tree-lined arteries between Boston and New York. (Talk about boring, IMHO).
It took me longer to appreciate some of the other factors I mentioned in this story, but I’ve been in love with big skies and golden fields since that first cross-country road trip I took 17 years ago. After crossing Kansas twice more this year and hearing again how miserable it is, I felt compelled to express the majesty of our country’s most open spaces.
If you have the opportunity to cross the United States by car, don’t be afraid of the medium. Soak it up and be sure to stop to take some photos of your car as the sun heads to bed.
