The Geographic Center

Given that we only had two weeks between weddings on opposite sides of country we mostly spent those two weeks driving quickly across. We partially chose our route to be direct and we partially chose our route for how funny it looked in the stickers on the back of the RV. 

We also wanted to see the geographic center of the lower 48. One of the books we read was American Gods by Neil Gaiman. One of the minor premises of the book is that roadside attractions are modern day holy places. His explanation: 

“It's perfectly simple," said Wednesday. "In other countries, over the years, people recognized the places of power. Sometimes it would be a natural formation, sometimes it would just be a place that was, somehow, special. They knew that something important was happening there, that there was some focusing point, some channel, some window to the Immanent. And so they would build temples or cathedrals, or erect stone circles, or...well, you get the idea." 

"There are churches all across the States, though," said Shadow. 

"In every town. Sometimes on every block. And about as significant, in this context, as dentists' offices. No, in the USA, people still get the call, or some of them, and they feel themselves being called to from the transcendent void, and they respond to it by building a model out of beer bottles of somewhere they've never visited, or by erecting a gigantic bat house in some part of the country that bats have traditionally declined to visit. Roadside attractions: people feel themselves pulled to places where, in other parts of the world, they would recognize that part of themselves that is truly transcendent, and buy a hot dog, and walk around, feeling satisfied on a level they cannot truly describe, and profoundly dissatisfied on a level beneath that.”

One of the places in the book is mentioned as the exact opposite of one of those holy places. There was a contrived plan to make a roadside attraction but the magic just wasn’t there. The gods avoid it unless they are forced to be there. 

After this description, and given the face that we are into things like mathematically calculating the center, we decided we had to visit. So we planned our mid-way point to be Lebanon, Kansas and the park at the geographic center of the lower 48. We were not disappointed. 

Overall the park was just as gods forsaken as we were expecting, but still interesting. And a fitting place to make the middle of our drive across the country.