When I was sixteen, I took a road trip with my family from Galveston, Texas, to Colorado Springs, Colo., up to Jackson Hole, Wyo., and back down to Texas. Despite the usual teenage complaints about driving around with my parents, it was a beautiful trip, filled with waterfalls and caverns, mountains and splendor.

The landscape flattened as we got closer to home, and I was behind the wheel of the family van when we crossed the state line into Kansas. I looked at the straight road ahead of me, and arching across the highway was a beautiful rainbow. I suddenly felt like Dorothy, and I wondered why she’d ever want to leave. Then I smelled the cow turds, and I quickly figured it out. (Sorry, Kansans.)

I’ve also been to Missouri, literally and literarily. Literally, I recommend the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City. It’s a place where you can see the rhythms and hear the rainbows. Not only do you get to listen to jazz music from greats like Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, you get to make jazz music, too. I could have banged on the drums all day.

Literarily, I really enjoyed Fannie Flagg’s Standing in the Rainbow. It starts in a small town in Missouri with a housewife’s living room radio broadcast that connects people across the state. The characters parade into her living room and then parade right back out, taking us with them. We get to tour the state with a family gospel band, head straight for Jefferson City with an ambitious young salesman destined for greatness, even take a side trip down to New Orleans. But I can’t really talk about that. That place is way beyond the rainbow, if you know what I mean.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 24th, 2006 at 6:24 pm and is filed under US and Canada, road tripping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.