When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.

– L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900

Those of us who grew up on the description of the State of Kansas in the first chapter of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz or who saw the classic 1939 MGM movie, which opens in black and white but switches to Technicolor when Dorothy’s tornado-swept house sets down in Munchkin Country, may have thought of Kansas as a gray, flat country, that goes on and on seemingly forever.

In one respect this impression is correct: Kansas goes on forever. However, it is neither grey nor in many parts flat.

Somehow during my first 58 years on the planet, I missed even driving through Kansas. Not a single business or pleasure trip took me to or through the Sunflower State. Then in September of 2020, Barbara and I drove out to visit our kids in Colorado. Pandemic made driving seem safer than flying and as we would be staying for many weeks and visiting Utah as well, we wanted to have the car with us. The most direct route goes straight through Kansas and I added it to my list of states visited at number 47.

We drove through Kansas again in December of the same year and then again on our way home in January of 2021. Neither the fall nor the winter passage prepared me, however, for the lush green that greeted us as we drove through last week just as summer was officially beginning.

The gateway to Kansas is a high bridge over the Kansas River just above where it joins the Missouri. The last thing you see leaving the State of Missouri as you drive west on I-70, is the town of Kansas City and a collection of somewhat rundown red and brown 19th Century buildings clustered near the river. I always want to stop and take a closer look but we always seem to be in a bit of a time crunch and this time was no different as we wanted to get to see our kids before our son took off for a business trip and our daughter and her husband left for a mini-vacation. There was a narrow window to catch them at home. Next time we will stop for sure.

Once across the river, the highway passes through Lawrence and then Topeka in short order. From the interstate Topeka appears to be a very pleasant little city, but again we had no time to stop.

Past Topeka, the landscape opens up into beautiful rolling hills that were at this time of year a deep lush green. Farms and cattle ranches form the vista as far as you can see.

It takes a long time to drive through Kansas. The state is almost 700km east to west (about 437 miles). We entered Kansas in the morning and night found still a pretty long way from Colorado’s eastern border.

The rolling green hills continue for hours. Somehow Kansas has largely avoided trashing up its highways with lots of road signs and advertising so there is little to spoil the view. Rest stops and services are far apart you have to keep an eye on the gas gauge. After a few hours, the land does begin to go very flat. The land is still green but it looks drier and the distances you can see seem enormous, the sky is very blue and large. Oil wells dot the landscape everywhere. With their long necks and cylinder-shaped beaks, they remind me of those silly drinking bird toys that were popular in the 1970s.

As I recall, many of them weren’t pumping in 2020 when oil prices were low but they were all pumping now. Somewhere along the way we passed yet again the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. “Next time,” we said as we sped past the exit.

Traveling home in January of last year, we spent our first night in our newly converted van at a campground in Cedar Bluff State Park west of Hays, Kansas. That night, with temperatures just below freezing, we appeared to be the only people in the campground. Even the office was closed and we paid by slipping some money in an envelope and dropping it in a slot. We camped right on the reservoir on a gorgeous starlit night. We were pretty warm in the van tucked inside our down sleeping bags.

We stopped there again last week on our way west. There were a few more people in the campground but the spot where we stayed before was open. We settled in to prepare a meal of stir fried vegetables and noodles with an ice cold Kansas-made Vertigo IPA that had made its way into our cooler earlier in the day. (It has, incongruously, a meditating deer on the label.)

It was pretty hot, no need for down sleeping bags this time, but a strong breeze kept things comfortable and kept away the biting Emerald City colored flies. The reservoir sparkled in the setting sun. It was like being home again, and everyone knows: there’s no place like home.

During the last bit of the drive the following day, the geography changed again to a kind of high, dry desert with its own stark beauty. More of the same on the Colorado side as we transitioned to mountain time. In another hour we were crawling through Denver traffic.

Kansas is, I think, an underrated state and we certainly didn’t do it justice speeding through in a just a day and a half. I feel sure that it is worth the much more leisurely visit that we are certain to make.

Next time.

Yes, Toto, This IS Kansas!