Ok, farmers of Kansas. You owe us, big time. If Iowa is synonymous with corn, surely Kansas is synonymous with wheat. Right? The state produces more wheat than any other in the union. THEN WHERE IS IT? We zig-zagged the state in search of amber waves of grain, and what did we find? Nothing but WEEDS! I want my money back, Kansas. I am so disappointed I can hardly go on.
We were so desperate, I even cornered a guy in a pick-up truck parked next to us at when we stopped for lunch. I knew he could help — his pick-up truck advertised farm equipment. So I explained that we were trying to find a beautiful wheat field to gaze upon and admire in its amberness. He rubbed his chin and pondered our options. “Well”, he said, “you can try going out route 99, my brother lives out there, but……. he cut his wheat yesterday”. YESTERDAY?!! Didn’t he know we were coming?
How is this possible? We drove for six hours and covered nearly one-quarter of the state, and couldn’t find those darned amber waves of grain anywhere. We saw corn fields,
oil fields,
hayfields,
and baseball fields.
I’m wondering about that song. After all, we saw the Grand Tetons and although they were majestic, they were certainly not purple. Bill’s thinking government conspiracy: Roswell, fake moon landing, grassy knoll, Kansas wheat fields. I mean, do we know for certain that Kansas is even a state?
Ok, ok, maybe I’m getting a little carried away. And the truth is, being the city slickers that we are, I’m not sure we could identify a wheat field, as opposed to say, an alfalfa field. Or a broccoli field, for that matter. The farmers don’t post signs with big arrows saying, “wheat grown here, in these amber waves of grain”. But we do know our colors, and we didn’t see anything approaching amber, yellow, brown, beige, or taupe. Just lots of green. Amber waves of green.
Oh well. We’ll just add Kansas to the list of states to which we must return — with a bona fide farmer by our side.
We shifted to Plan B and focused on the other iconic image associated with Kansas: The Wizard of Oz. Our first stop was the town of Sedan, which claims the world’s longest yellow brick road.
Wasn’t actually that long, but it probably doesn’t have a lot of competition for the title. Our next stop was Wamego and the Wizard of Oz Museum.
This was fun — over 2,000 Oz-related objects. Who knew that so much ozmobilia existed? We couldn’t tear ourselves away from the theater, especially during all the good parts, like when the flying monkeys……oh, sorry, I don’t want to spoil it for you.
Our odyssey through Kansas took us along interstates 35, 70, and 435, and routes 75, 24, 99, and 166. At least we had some good food in Kansas. Yummy ice cream at Braums, and fantastic Kansas City Barbecue at Jack Stack’s. Speaking of food, this sign frightened me on many levels. Isn’t True Value a hardware store?
Anyway, our sojourn took us past many beautiful, if not amber, sights in Kansas. We learned a little about the old homesteading days when we passed this sign.
We crossed briefly into Kansas City, Mo to get to the airport, and couldn’t resist saying, “We’re not in Kansas anymore…..”
And for some reason, we went through the tightest security we’ve had yet at the Kansas City airport. Maybe they’re trying to catch people sneaking out of Kansas with their suitcases loaded with amber fields of grain. That would explain a lot.
42. Kansas
The Wizard of Oz Museum