The Sybil of Superhighways

Interstate 70 is the superhighway with a multiple personality disorder. Going though my memory and scanning the Rand McNally map of the United States, I can't find another interstate that offers so much dramatically changing scenery. Through the Rockies, I-70 is glorious (when the rain isn't trying to kill you) and back east, when it is part of the partnership that makes the Pennsylvania Turnpike, it is fully deserving of its "scenic road" status. But looking at the stretch from eastern Colorado through Ohio, you'll be hard pressed to find a less interesting road.

With no natural scenery to hold my attention, I contented myself cruising under puffy Simpsons clouds and reading billboards for fabulous attractions. A sampling of the tourist spots I passed by includes Prairie Dog Town (where you can see the world's largest prairie dog), the Oz Museum, Castle Rock (I visited there almost twenty years ago with Nanda and Morgan), the Garden of Eden, the World's Largest Czech Egg, the Boyer Museum of Animated Carvings, the U. S. Calvary Museum, Rock City ("A National Landmark!"), the birthplaces of Senators Bob Dole and Arlen Spector (both in Russell, Kansas), and the President Eisenhower Library and Museum. I did stop to see the Cathedral of the Plains, which was finished in 1911 and so named by William Jennings Bryan, because is was just a quarter mile off of the interstate. It was thoroughly underwhelming. Have a look for yourself.

In conservative Kansas, somebody paid for a billboard offering a quotation from Ronald Reagan, but the message was too long and the font was too small for me to understand what "The Great Communicator" was trying to tell me. I was also back in the land of roadside Christian messages; my favorite, mixed among the many anti-abortion signs ("I had hiccups before I was born," one infant told me), was the one that read, "Jesus heals and restores; pornography destroys." Others seemed to disagree because the adult superstores and their billboards were also back in force. One simply announced, "ADULT! EXIT NOW!"

I spun the radio dial and found more Christian broadcasts. Family Life Radio interspersed Jesus soft rock with one ad after another about how to fix your problem children. The advice boiled down to going to church more often and buying Dr. Soandso's (the names changed but one ad took a moment to clarify that he is not an M.D.) eight/ten/fifteen step program—the first DVD is free!

I took a break in Topeka to stretch the legs and do what I do in capital cities. The capitol building is fine, although too grandiose for a state like Kansas, and the park in front had the longest freshly mowed lawn I have ever seen. Just around the corner, however, is perhaps the ugliest office building ever thrown up. While the blocky green monstrosity stood out among its neighbors, the whole of downtown Topeka had a stuck-in-the-1960s feel to its architecture.

Topeka is also home to the Brown v. Board of Ed National Historic Site, housed in the very elementary school that was problematically segregated. I took a quick tour. The information presented was pretty basic and well known to anybody with a passing understanding of the Civil Rights Movement, but it was cool to go through the school anyway.

Just down the road is Lawrence, home to Kansas University. The campus is very fitting of the state: pleasant enough but not worth taking pictures of. The downtown area is nicer and college trendier, but I didn't get out of the car; I had to get going past Kansas City and into Missouri.

More boring driving, more of the same billboards, but now FIREWORKS! signs were thrown in liberally as well. I grabbed campsite #20 at Finger Lakes State Park and then headed out to the Country Kitchen for free internet access and a plate of chicken and ziti. I was back in my tent and asleep by 1:30 a.m.

Saturday (thankfully) will be my last full day alone on the road before getting back home to Hopkinton, Massachusetts and my patient, wonderful family.