The Kansas experience..

I drive a lot, many people at ESSDACK do. As we log the miles there is much time for thought. Outside of the numerous cell phone conversations managing the events that will necessitate the next long drive, the time in the seat is largely wasted. I listen to audio books on a range of topics to try to use the parts of my mind not engaged by the challenges of driving. The world of the highway and these audio books, fuse for me as my mind seeks to integrate new understandings. When my synapses are truly cooking, I feel I can have what feels like "highway revelation". This is what inspired me to do the Driving Questions podcast. Kansas is beautiful but it's landscape does not offer much striking beauty like, say..Colorado, Pennsylvania or New Mexico. There is something of an aesthetic steamroom at work on long drives through this state. In this time you sweat out of your system all of your expectations that visual wonder is around the next coop or feed store and in order to stay awake a driver is called upon to look closely at what is there. There is beauty on another octave altogether and is is not played loudly. What I've come to appreciate is the nuance of Kansas. It lies in a feild you've passed on the way to Topeka five times in two months but suddenly you notice the clover has turned pink. We don't have mountains but I appreciate the structures in clouds and the myriad sublime colors as the sun sets on the "always visible" horizon. The rest areas all have histories visible in the plaques which proclaim themes from Eisenhower to the Sante Fe Trail. People along the way in Kansas are usually nice. Wherever you go from truckstop to small town cafe, you are not gauranteed a full set of front teeth from attendents but almost always get a smile to see the difference. After a few years in a polite state, a visit to a more metropolitan city can easily shock you, as the casm between Kansas-polite and say Chicago-polite becomes clear. Cities are great places and are an oasis to me when I crave diversity of ideas but the friendliness and personal communications are quite different than those experienced in the midwest.