Will You Buy Me a Drink, Carry Nation?

MEDICINE LODGE, Kan. -- From the top of the grassy mound, I could see no evidence of man. No power lines, no farms, no cities or even a cell phone tower. Just hundreds, maybe thousands of identical looking hills, rising a couple hundred feet off the prairie floor, a few low scrub trees and a threatening sky, sealing off Big Sky country.

I felt alone, more definitively in the wilderness than I thought possible in Kansas. It was like Wales, only more gloomy and more forlorn.

My two companions were Ryan, with a day off from his ambulance job, and Jean, in town from Quebec City. The first Quebecois to come to these hills? Maybe.

Why we climbed this hill, and not the dozens of others we passed since leaving Medicine Lodge, I'm not sure. But it wasn't until we abandoned my Toyota Corolla and hiked up the mound that I realized how far from civilization we had come. I wondered if we'd ventured too far. I suggested we head back to the car. We had no map, and it was already 5 p.m. On this gloomy day, that meant not more than two hours until nightfall.

Back at the car, I looked at the gas gauge. One-quarter full. I wondered if we'd be spending the night in these hills.

On a map, Medicine Lodge is about 75 miles from Wichita, an hour's drive. In practice it takes well over two, because of the paucity of roads in rural Kansas. We wound south, then west, then south and finally back to the east before reaching Medicine Lodge.

I wanted to see Indians. Medicine Lodge is where in 1867 20,000 Indians from five tribes signed a major peace treaty with the government, an important part of our nation's history of unequal agreements with these peoples. Coming into town, several large billboards advertised triannual campout where people would reenact the signing. Unfortunately it wasn't for a few more weeks.

The only pioneer relics in town were a few rusted out cart frames, parked next to the town's little league field.

We needed an activity for the day, so we decided to walk up and down the town's mostly vacant Main Street for ideas. At the grocery store - where the Wichita Eagle is sold, proudly displaying the lead article written by me - an older man suggested a drive in the hills. At a nearby gas station, a woman suggested the "Scenic Drive," a road that left the main highway just outside of town.

"People seem to like it," she said, and shrugged.

The road began by ascending a small hill, using wide curves to avoid steep inclines. The view slowly came into focus. We weren't terribly far from Wichita, but it seemed as if we'd crossed some invisible border that separated the High Plains from the West. The soil was now rust colored, and the grasses were spiky and short, not reaching three inches off the ground. I'd last seen this scenery in Colorado.

After six miles, the scenic road turned to dirt. On the way to Medicine Lodge we ran into a downpour so heavy that I had to pull over and wait for 15 minutes until it moderated. Water pools were scattered over the road. I have been on wet dirt roads before here in Kansas, with messy results. Egged on by my passengers, I turned on the road anyway.

The journey was wild. Wheels gripped the road one second and then slid off at a 45 degree angle the next. I had to keep the car in second gear, furiously pressing the gas petal and pulling the steering wheel to keep the car on the road.

The road went on and on and on. Ten miles became 20, then 30 and 40. We passed a couple cattle fences, but saw no one. There were no car tracks, and the route wasn't on the Kansas AAA map I had in the car.

We drove through the twilight. Right before I needed to turn on my lights, we reached the highway. I was thrilled. I wrote my name in Chinese on the inch-thick mud on the side of the car, took pictures and cleaned off my sandals. We had returned.

Note: This is the second of three entries on my recent travels outside of Wichita. They'll be posted between current musings on Kansas' largest city.