13 Ways of Looking at a Road Trip: 12, Reminder

3. Reminder Stone

All who pass, pause:
from a source inside
we hunt the goal.

This journey you are on--
how far? Look down:
this place?

It may be here.

--from "Roadside Markers for West of Dodge" by William Stafford

Thunderless lightening lit the black sky of Hutchinson the night I arrived. I could see it from miles away because trees weren't blocking the distance. It's one of the things I miss most about Kansas: sky all storm, end to end.

The next night it stormed for real. We watched from inside as the rain slanted sideways and filled the street, my car wading up to its rims. I shivered in the after-air, drove home with damp skin.

I learned there's now a wind turbine manufacturer in Hutchinson. I saw a blade the length of three semis crossing through town, the curvature and gloss what set it off from a wing. My high school has its own 5 kilowatt turbine providing partial power, harnessing wind I wish I'd known how to use years ago.

Ad astra per aspera. John James Ingalls believed in Kansas, and wrote that "the aspiration of Kansas is to reach the unattainable; its dream is the realization of the impossible." Ingalls, a native of Massachusetts, chose to live in Kansas because he believed the state had a bright and promising future. To the stars through difficulties.

I slept under the stars for the first time on the trip, the tent top exposed to a clear sky. Sunset had fallen in rainbow over Cheney Lake, full moon behind. It was light enough I was not afraid. In the morning, we found raccoon tracks along the water's edge and ants all over our food. We listened to the calls of birds we couldn't identify, stood silently with our feet covered in clay, practiced following waves to the horizon.