A young friend I know is traveling throughout the west right now. This morning, he posted a complaint about bugs on his windshield in Kansas, and it reminded me of this:
AGES ago, before the kids, my husband and I drove out west in his Isuzu pick-up truck. Clancy, barking up and down the bed of the truck, chasing cars, antelope, and collapsing at night, flat exhausted, once we got to the campground. We went as far as Idaho (Sun Valley, where Hemingway once skied) before we turned around to head back, full of memories, and the beauty of this amazing country of ours.
As we neared the western border of Kansas, we were dreading the long boring straight drive across a pancake state after driving through the glory of curved mountain highways, beautiful vistas of red and black rock, crevice waterfalls, and rollicking mountain rivers. As was our habit, we stopped at a rest area just inside the border, for a restroom break for ourselves and the dog, and for info on where we might be able to stay the night. Taking turns walking the dog, we visited the facilities separately, so the dog could have as much time as possible out of the truck. It was an easy routine we'd settled into after the second or third day on the road, and a chance for some quiet time, too. Our plan for a quick 70-mph sprint through Kansas shifted as my husband's husband's 'turn' turned into a sprint back across the grass. He was waving a piece of paper and shouting, "We can get a free cooler! We can get a free cooler!"
Apparently, in an effort to boost tourism (since Kansas is so obviously a state people just pass through on their way to loftier destinations), Kansas-based Coleman coolers and the Kansas Tourism Commission created a program where, if you stopped at x number of locations and spent x number of dollars (and got your Free Cooler card stamped), you could send it in, and they'd send you a free cooler.
Well, being in no hurry, we did just that. We stopped all along the way--at Fort Hayes in Kansas, we took Clancy's photo in front of the Greyhound Racing Hall of Fame, and visited Old Town Topeka, where we (and the dog) got our picture taken at one of those old time photography studios. It was a delightful couple of days and we did, indeed, "Linger Longer in Kansas".
A few weeks later, as promised, our small, durable, and used to this day cooler (with 'Linger Longer in Kansas' impressed in the top) arrived.
Memory made--and kept. :-)
(If you even see this) We, too, lingered longer in Kansas when our daughters were young- that had to be 1995 or so? It was SO FUN. As my husband and I plan a trip back through Kansas, I looked to see if they had a similar program. Not this trip. Oh well, we might have lingered longer than we are planning. (BTW, we gave up our cooler to a downsizing, but loved it for years.)
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