Kansas

Year of First Visit – 1976
Point of Entry – Metro North Kansas City

We made a wrong turn. The “Welcome to Kansas” sign was affirmation that we should have gone the other way.



It wasn’t that bad; the place we were headed was on the Missouri/Kansas state line.

Other trips to Kansas started out almost accidentally, too. A professor in college happened upon a great BBQ place just across the river from our college and, though not a big BBQ fan until this place converted me, we went there nearly every Wednesday during my college years and still ship their sauce back east each time we run low.



I picked up a card off the “Help Wanted” board at school one day and, though the position was a long shot, I found myself spending a summer living in Missouri and working in Kansas.



I was told that I wouldn’t enjoy driving across Kansas as I headed back and forth between Missouri and Texas. Yet, though I wasn’t supposed to, I enjoyed each crossing of the Flint Hills as I pondered the courage and strength (mental and physical) of those who crossed them in Conestoga wagons.



My sister-in-law got married in central Kansas. My family flew to Missouri on Friday night, arriving after dark and going straight to bed. Up and on the road before sunrise on Saturday, our first daylight came just after Lawrence. It was such a dramatically different scene from inner-city Baltimore where we had last seen daylight that we felt like we had accidentally stepped through some kind of time/space warp and were now in a different universe all together.

Though I’ve spent many days in Kansas, I’ve never spent the night there. Even so, I’m glad some wrong turns lead me to wake up to Kansas.

Iowa

Year of First Visit – 1979
Point of Entry – I-35 Near Albert Lea

On our road trips over the years, my dad would often say, “I think we need to stop for a while.” Even though we sometimes didn’t seem to think we needed to, we were always glad we did.

Many of those stops were in Iowa.



We stopped and toured Herbert Hoover’s birthplace and his Presidential Library and Museum. We stopped at the Amana Colonies. We stopped in Oceola for a good meal. We stopped to get off I-80 to drive country roads for a while.

I’ve been a part of a helping a lot of people stop in Iowa for a while, too. My first trip there was to take my brother to college in Lamoni. Over the years, I’ve taken or sent many kids to Spectacular at Graceland University where they could stop their inner-city lives for a break in Iowa.

I took 5 different kids to Iowa to attend college. They were able to take a much needed break from their families and lives in Baltimore to learn and grow out in the country.



I lived in Iowa for a couple of years when I attended graduate school in Iowa City. It was an especially busy time with school, working at both Target and MCI, getting married and starting life as a couple (while she worked two jobs, too).

Though the budget was excessively tight, Iowa sill provided plenty of places to stop feeling busy and poor for little a while. A drive to the Field of Dreams. A visit with my aunt and uncle in Cedar Rapids. A tour of the state capitol. A window shopping trip to the outlets in Williamsburg. A walk around the Amanas. A visit to the (then newly renovated and updated) Herbert Hoover sites.



And though I didn’t always appreciate it or think it was necessary at the time, a stopover in Iowa --- for a couple of hours or a couple of years --- was more needed than I thought. I’m glad I did.

Indiana

Year of First Visit – 1976
Point of Entry – I-69 near Angola

Even though I was only 6 when it happened, I remember clearly crossing the border into Indiana the first time. We were on our way taking my oldest brother to start school at Park College in Missouri and it was the first time I’d been out of the state of Michigan.

We spent the night at a hotel near Angola and I still recall how strange it seemed to watch a public service announcement from the Indiana, rather than Michigan, police on the TV.

For a couple years in the late 80s, my other brother and his family lived in Lowell. We visited there and also stopped by when Mom and I drove out to take me to start school at Park College. I also flew in (via Chicago Midway) to visit them and meet up with Mom and Dad one Easter.

Other than that, Indiana has been primarily a “thru” state for me; it wasn’t the destination but something to check off as I drove someplace else.

This was true even when my son and I got off the Amtrak in South Bend. Though our ticket showed Indiana as a destination, it was just the place where we would met up with family who took us to their home in South Haven, Michigan.

At this point, I don’t have too many reasons to go back to Indiana. Maybe I’ll find a place I want to stop and visit if I need to drive through it again on my way someplace else.

Illinois

Year of First Visit – 1976
Point of Entry – I-70 Near Terra Haute

I’ve been to (or through) Illinois more times than I can count. You would think that it would become ordinary yet all my memories are of things that are extreme ----

-I remember stepping out on the glass and looking straight down over 100 floors to the Chicago streets below me from the observation level of the Willis (Sears) Tower.

-I remember as a child my family finding “No Vacancy” signs for miles and miles until coming to the Hull Motel, which qualifies as the worst place to stay ever!

-I remember as a high school student from a small town deplaning at the United terminal at O’Hare, at the time the world’s largest, to change planes as I traveled by myself to try to land an academic scholarship for college.

-I remember the longest, straightest, flattest, dullest stretch of freeways.

-I remember attending a seminar at Willow Creek Community Church, one of the largest churches in the country.

-I remember days with relatives in Golconda and the wonderful, extreme opposite of my hurried urban life, relaxing visits.

-I remember a descent into Midway Airport when, as the surrounding neighborhood’s rooftops grew ever closer, hearing a fellow passenger proclaim, “I sure hope there’s a runway around here!”

-I remember Peter Segal having to try over and over again at the recording of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me to say the slogan for Lending Tree (When banks compete you win), the show’s sponsor, after doing a lengthy segment on the economic collapse banks in 2008.

Yes, my times in Illinois have been extreme and there’s only so much of that kind of thing I can handle. Good thing my wife didn’t take the job in Lake Zurich.