Hello friends!
I drove and drove and drove this week, from Baker City to Boise to Belle Fourche and beyond. Five states and nearly 1,400 miles. Interstate and backroads, sagebrush and prairie.
At a rest stop in South Dakota, I paused outside the entrance to read a historical marker. I was in Belle Fourche, about an hour from my destination in Rapid City. September sun beat at a low slant, obscuring the words. I squinted at the text. Without intending to, I had arrived at the place geographers determined in 1959 was the center of the United States. The rest stop was a monument to the center of the nation.
You know I was thrilled. Could there be any better omen for a road trip focused on a nation's monuments than arriving at a monument to the exact center of that nation, especially without planning to? What luck!
Later at my computer, I found a UPI story from 1959 in the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader. It's a brief about planting a flagpole in Belle Fourche. Pure dispatch-from-Dullsville news, but it had a fantastic dateline. Those are the designations news outlets use to signal where a story is set. "Center Of The Nation, S.D." Delightful!
These geographic designations don't mean much—few are official and what are lines on a map, after all? And who's doing the measuring? But they're fun facts. Like the world's smallest harbor in Depoe Bay, Oregon, a made-up-but-sort-of-true label that gives the tiny coastal fishing town a catchphrase for T-shirts. Or the geographic center of North America, in Rugby, North Dakota. I've been there, too. (Apparently, there's some dispute about whether it's truly the center.)
Much is made of flyover country, but we talk less about the dismal state of "drive-thru country." It's the sameness of the Interstate exits and suburban intersections with identical chain stores and restaurants. You could be anywhere or nowhere, the coasts or the plains. You don’t even have to get out of your car. It's a bummer, especially when you're looking for a meal with some regional flair. Is this the best we can do?
Any town with the cheek to assign itself a superlative deserves a stop. So put 'em on the map, the weird little monuments to obscure places and designations. Fight over them. Take a selfie. Keep driving, next stop the World's Largest Ball of Twine. No way we’re going to Applebee’s.
Yours from the center of the nation,
Erika
THE NEWS
All the links…
How a guaranteed monthly income changed the lives of artists in New York.
Red and blue states have big climate plans. The election could upend them.
Another story about climate-friendly wheat and bread.
A 12-year-old Washington, D.C. girl was hit by a car. It had $19,770 in unpaid tickets.
Related: In Portland, Ore., the leading mayoral candidates have both had their licenses suspended in the past.
Are we thinking about obesity all wrong? “People who are diagnosed with clinical obesity deserve health care without blame, just as those who have diabetes, cancer or clinical depression do. But first, we have to agree on what obesity is.”
Slow Burn: The Rise of Fox News. The first episode of this podcast is an all-too-vivid and accurate recreation of the chaos of Election Night 2000 in Florida. (I spent the evening reporting from a party in Bal Harbour for a congressional candidate who lost.)