RIVER CITY JOURNAL: LOOK AT THAT: YOU CAN SEE WORLD'S EDGE

There you are, skimming along the interstate, headed south for the president's home state. And what do you see?

Forever.

For someone who recently spent four years in Kansas, the Bootheel is a contrast. Some of you may find this hard to believe. On your trips to Colorado you no doubt have remarked more than once about the monotony of Kansas, particularly western Kansas, which starts about 60 miles from the eastern border, leaving more than 400 miles of highway and sky.

And more highway and sky.

Much, much more.

Folks, the Bootheel makes the rolling terrain around Topeka look like a mountain range. Shucks, there may even be a ski lift over yonder on Burnett's Mound, the highest point in eastern Kansas. It is difficult to maintain the illusion, however, when you look at the streams in Kansas: muddy, slow-moving, like long ponds with no beginning and no end.

But here is the good news: What you see from an interstate isn't reality. To know the Bootheel -- or Kansas -- you need to turn off at the least likely exit and roam around.

First off, you need to know that large quantities of flat land hide features undetected from the highway department's version of smooth terrain. In western Kansas, for example, there are canyons and towering rock formations that both astound and mesmerize.

Something else you miss while whizzing along a superhighway: people. Real flesh-and-blood people. The hum of the highway drowns out the voices of the people, their special variations of the English language -- although at times you might well wonder if it is really English at all.

On the interstate you don't get to meet the cotton pickers and the high-prairie ranchers, or the swimming pool salesman or the newspaper publisher or the woman in western Kansas who found millions of shark's teeth left over from the inland sea that once covered arid Oakley.

You know what that woman did with all those shark's teeth? She made pictures of Bible scenes with them, and painted them. They are on display in a museum in Oakley, Kan. Of course, you have to turn off the interstate to see them. It is worth it.

In Southeast Missouri and Northeast Arkansas, one of the pleasures of leaving the interstate and talking to people is listening to their voices. You may not think this is interesting at all, and why would anyone derive pleasure from hearing how somebody talks? If you are like most Americans, you have moved around a lot, and you know people in New York and folks in Caruthersville might need an interpreter. At least for a while, until they got used to the speech patterns and word choices.

Or go to western Kentucky and have a fellow tell you about when his father, a fishing guide on Kentucky Lake, used to "carry" the governor and other prominent people out on the lake to do a little serious fishing. Carry? That's right. You can figure it out if you know anything about southern communication.

Which you might not know anything about if you stick to the interstates.

When William Least-Heat Moon wrote his book, "Blue Highways," several years ago, it was received as an interesting look at the America that exists without benefit of an interstate. You know what? That America is still there, and you can travel off the level, no-curve, no-stop path. It is legal.

You may need a guide to carry you to some of the more interesting spots, and you may need a translator from time to time, but getting from here to there doesn't have to be 70 miles an hour from one rest stop to another.

Think about it: The view along an interstate is pretty much the same in Ohio and in Idaho. Maybe that is why some folks in New York City keep getting the two confused.

No automobile trip has to be flat, whether you are in the Bootheel or western Kansas. It all depends on how you choose to get to life's road stops.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.