Westward Ho (Ho Ho!)

Guymon, Oklahoma. By some inexplicable coincidence, the distance between Scottsdale, Arizona and Schroon Lake, New York is exactly the same: 1,250 miles. Since flying has become such a hassle and is so unreliable I decided to drive westward. The unreliability in the overland plan is the weather. How could I have known that one of the biggest blizzards in decades would sweep through the Midwest on Christmas Eve day? I watched the progress of the storm attentively. It seemed to be two-pronged, bashing the Upper Midwest and the states south of us at the same time, but leaving western Kansas virtually unscathed.
When I started off this morning I had to ask myself if I wasn't making a big mistake. The Interstate was in part ice-covered and high winds blew drifting snow. But around Emporia, after two hours of white knuckle driving, the situation improved and by Wichita there was little of the white stuff to be seen. I have described the landscape of this segment of the journey, the Flint Hills, a little more than a year ago. The road west of Wichita was unchartered territory to me. I have traversed the entirety of the great state of Kansas before, heading to Denver, but that route was in the middle of the state. Today's route, the K 54, was more southerly. During the steady and subtle gain of altitude into the Great Plains trees become scarce. These are wide open spaces here. There is something grand about the vastness of space on the Plains. The land is fertile and given over to agriculture. There is a gentleness to the curve of the land. I can imagine how its inhabitants would be attached to living out here, although I would find it intolerable. Towns are few and far between. Look at any map of western Kansas and it looks like it is nearly empty. After Wichita I travelled on a secondary road. I much prefer it to the monotony of the Interstate. Of the towns I passed through, with names like Kingman, Calista, Pratt, Bucklin and Meade, a few were charming, with some vestiges of a past century, while others were utterly non-descript, a collection of ramshackle homes, the inevitable fast food eateries and abandoned gas stations.