Kansas Day

Today is Kansas Day, the anniversary of the admission of Kansas into the Union in 1861.

Kansas has never been a destination for me, but I have driven across its liminal landscape on plenty of occasions. Like an infinity pool, the plains of Kansas go on for as far as the eye can see. It's as mesmerizing as it is disorienting. 

“You can never really escape. It goes with you, wherever you go. Somehow, the prairie dust gets in your blood, and flows through your veins until it becomes a part of you. The vast stretches of empty fields, the flat horizons of treeless plains. The simplicity of the people—good, earnest people. All that—it’s etched into your soul and it colors the way you see everything and becomes part of you. When you leave, everything you experience outside of Kansas will be measured against all you know here." – P.S. Baber, Cassie Draws the Universe