Somewhere In Kansas

Rocketing along at seventy miles per hour, our black Subaru stuck to the highway with all of its however many pounds fully loaded. We were literally left in the swirling dust by tanker trucks and a curiously fuzzy fishing boat. Covered with dead bushes and branches, at first it appeared someone was hauling dead wood to the dump. Then again, who in the wide open plains of Kansas would haul dead brush anywhere? More likely it would be burnt in a pile, or plowed under. Perhaps though, if the winds blew like this every day, burning would be nixed.

“It’s a duck-hunting boat,” my husband informed. And surely, that it was. Amazingly, as it’s tow-vehicle roared by with it, barely a leaf or twig was detected flying off the thing. It was poetry in motion watching it sail out of sight on the relentless Kansas wind, as it appeared to float off into the horizon.

Holding to the speed limit we were passed by vehicles of all sizes again and again. Maybe in this windy country people are used to practicing outrun-the-tornado driving. They all seemed to have left us behind, on a highway somewhere in the middle of Kansas cornfields. As my husband kept his eyes on the road, I kept my eyes peeled, just to be sure, for that girl with a basket, in a blue checked gingham jumper, with pigtails, red shoes, and a little dog. For as the wind swirled by we could almost hear the echo of her glad refrain, “There’s no place like home!”