The official name of my cross-country trip – since my office is footing the bill and I’m technically working – is the ‘True Tales Tour.’ Today, however, I commandeered the driver’s seat and launched my own initiative, the ‘True Tacky Tour.’
Apparently the state of Kansas is a bit wanting for things to do. Last night, after all, I hung out with the undergrads of Fort Hays State University, whose main diversions are porch parties and tapping kegs at 11 a.m. at this time of year for a-middle-of-nowhere Oktoberfest. I’m talking the mayor of the city kicks off a beer fest on a Friday morning. With that theme of ‘find your own entertainment’ in mind, I realized Kansas was ripe for the picking of tacky memorabilia.
Chapter the First: Kevin Costner and Historic Fort Hays.
While not tacky per se, the Historic Fort Hays site was just off the university’s campus, so we gave it a shot. According to the guys we talked to yesterday, Fort Hays was where Kevin Costner’s character in Dances With Wolves was stationed before venturing off to the frontier. And I’m sorry, but if your claim to fame is to have launched a Kevin Costner role, you done screwed up.
And if you can tell me why a historic military installation abuts a golf course – a military installation with posted notices on how easily brush fires spread due to high winds – you’re a smarter man than I. It might be the cynic in me, but hitting the links where there’s a near-constant 20-miles-per-hour wind doesn’t seem like a good idea.
Chapter the Second: Prairie Dogs, Peacocks and Supposed Steers.
The next stop on the Tacky Tour was Oakley, which claims a 8,000-pound prairie dog, a live, six-legged steer and some other animal whatsit.
By ‘animal whatsit,’ I mean ‘poor conditions for neglected-looking foxes, goats and a variety of avian species, as well as a network of prairie-dog holes and goose shit.’
One of the themes on this road trip has been the non-payment of goods and fees. We somehow squeaked by without having to ante up $25 each for a day pass to Yellowstone. We arrived at Fort Hays before it opened, yet were still given entrance to buildings without forking over $3 apiece. Brandon even weaseled a free postcard for me from a Western-clothing store in Laramie. So you can guess how pissed I was when I found out I had driven two hours – the entire duration of which I was pumping my fist in the air and yelling ‘Big effing prairie dog! Hells yes!’ – that we had to pay $6.95 for the privilege.
As you can most likely guess from the ‘animal whatsit’ description above, the experience was a bit of a letdown. The 8,000-pound prairie dog was a concrete statue, the petting zoo was a wash (I’m not really that into touching lethargic-looking goats with matted fur, thank you very much), half of the rattlesnakes looked dead and the live, six-legged steer? Didn’t exist.
But there were some very nice belt buckles at the gift shop.
Chapter the Third: An Aborted Rock-Formation Excursion.
Just down the road from Prairie-Dog Hell was Monument Rocks, a formation of stones that was described as a ‘concretion,’ the first of two new words I learned today that were used in reference to the Sites of Tackiness. Apparently it means ‘a rounded mass of mineral matter found in sedimentary rock,’ so I’m going to start saying things like ‘them things sure is looking concretion-esque, Martha,’ and ‘sorry I didn’t get back to you last night, man, I was up on the concretion.’
I honestly have no idea how Monument Rocks fit into the mold of kitschy, but the idea of a rock formation in the middle of what is stereotypically though of as the flattest state in the Union was a little intriguing.
After 45 or so minutes of driving, I completely zone out and enter that free-association state of mind wherein you don’t notice anything around you. Right around the time that I realize I forgot my dad’s birthday this year – I’m sorry, dad. I was a bit too involved with starting grad school and getting ready for this trip, not I can use those as an excuse – I drove right past the sign pointing to Monument Rocks.
The fact that the sign pointed to a camouflaged gravel road probably didn’t help either.
Brandon and I sat at the road’s entrance for a while, debating whether or not to drive the seven tough miles down to a bunch of rocks. Seeing as how we’re driving an ever-so-off-road-ready Buick LaCrosse, we decided against it. But just behind us was an abandoned one-room house standing alone in a field – think the church in the video for Guns ‘N’ Roses’ ‘November Rain,’ but without the steeple, or Slash playing guitar – so I stopped for a consolation photo shoot in lieu of a rock formation.
Intermission: An Unexpected Road-Trip Soundtrack.
In the same vein as the radio station that was playing Nelly in the middle of the desert, I found a station that was playing some strange music in the middle of Kansas. Nota bene: Booker T. and the MGs’ ‘Green Onions’ and Green Day’s ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ are great tracks when you’re doing 95 on a country road.
Chapter the Fourth: A Long Drive to the Center of Everything, and the Center of Everything.
Distances are deceiving. We figured we would take a short jaunt to the northeast, where we could find the geographic center of the United States and the world’s largest ball of twine – obviously the best decision I have ever made in my life – and that we could be to the hotel by 7:30 p.m. or so.
We didn’t reach the hotel until after 10. What was supposed to be a quick drive took nearly four hours – but I did spend my time productively, surfing the internet on my Treo while doing my customary 90-plus while Brandon napped.
We were on our way to what the atlas labeled as the Geographical Center of Conterminous U.S., bringing me to the second new word I’ve learned today. ‘Conterminous’ means ‘sharing a common border,’ but I fail to see why Rand McNally had to use a $100 word when ‘the Lower 48’ or ‘the continental U.S.’ or just ‘the freaking middle’ would work.
The center of the United States should be filled with things that make this country great, like Ferris wheels and Budweiser and chicken wings and Hooters waitresses. Someone obviously dropped the ball on that one, because all you get is a ghetto whitewashed, hand-lettered sign reading ‘Welcome to the center of the USA. Lebanon has souvenirs,’ the U.S. Center Chapel (which was really a mini trailer), an American flag and some boarded-up Bates Motel-looking structure.
Brandon wants me to tell you he took a piss in the center of the country. We’re all proud of him.
We posed for some pictures, we did some impromptu preaching in the U.S. Center Chapel, we got the hell out of Dodge. I was really hoping for a Hooters waitress to serve me chicken wings and Bud on a Ferris wheel, but that’ll have to do.
Chapter the Fifth: A Clump of String, or Yarn, or Whatever, and the Journey’s End.
Despite not getting my fill of Americana at the country’s belly button, I was still pretty excited at the prospect of seeing the world’s largest ball of twine, which was located 15 or so miles down the road. On the way there, I hear the song ‘Honky Tonk Badonkadonk’ for the first time, and understand where the reference ‘on like Donkey Kong’ comes from.
I’m beginning to like country music; god help me.
Let me tell you something, as I feel as if I’m an expert now: Things like ‘the world’s largest ball of twine’ are best left imagined and not experienced. It’s … a giant ball of string, or yarn, or whatever. Under an open-air shelter. Across the street from blue-collar poverty. It’s one of those experiences you have and then don’t know what to say, save, ‘Umm … yep. Ball of yarn.’
We closed the night at with dinner at a Taco John’s – bad idea – and by stopping for supplies at Wal-Mart. If I’ve learned anything today, it’s that true Americana can’t be found at tacky tourist attractions in rural Kansas. You have to eat fast food and buy things at Wal-Mart.
That, my friends, is America. God bless it.
Let’s talk about Oktoberfest, Elysian Fields, irony and Texas.
Example the second: As I said before, it’s too big in this state, too hot, too spread out. While this wouldn’t be the last place on the planet I would choose to make my own personal Eden, it’s certainly not in the top 100. Thus a town called ‘Elysian Fields, Texas’ strikes me as another manifestation of either this hipster irony or poor, shortsighted planning. Such a town does exist – see the photo – and I’m pretty sure it’s not populated with the slain souls of the heroic and virtuous, as Homer described in the Odyssey.
