Saturday, July 28, 2007

Is There Anybody in Kansas Any More?

It has rained pretty much all day so it is a fine time to go backwards in time. Back to the small prairie town of Colby Kansas.

Why Colby? What would make me get off the interstate and purposefully drive through this particular town to have a look around. My dear friend Ana B, formerly of Maui, has landed in this small Kansas town to stay. I had to see what it was like. I had to be able to say I have been to Colby before I began to say I was from Clyde.















Driving through western Kansas there are fields as far as the eye can see. Very gentle undulating hills with nary a tree to be seen go on for mile after mile. An occasional house may appear all alone in an endless landscape and every so often tiny little towns can be seen. They stand out as an oasis because of the green trees that huddle closely with the buildings in tight clumps, reminiscent of herding herbivores gathered in circles for protection from the elements and predators. I wandered in to the circle to look at the life forms inside.















What I saw were iconic American images. The churches to go with the fundamentalist billboards that were seen from the highway. The big silos and processing facilities for the grains that feed the world.

Corn on the right side of the road and water raised high in the sky to make use of gravity.















Wheat on the left side of the road, those amber waves of grain.
















I have seen Colby Kansas, if only in a drive-by viewing.

2 comments:

chuck b. said...

That last pic feels esp. lonely to me.

What about Ana B.? You didn't visit with her?

Christopher C. NC said...

Ana B was on Maui for a month to help run the Wailea Film Festival so I got to see her right before I left. Otherwise I would have had another pit stop on my cross country journey.