Taking a roadtrip road trip across America

Trying to describe a Midwest summer is like trying to navigate through a maze of corn.

Or stand upright in a prairie wind.

Or spit a watermelon seed past your toes.

Tackle the activity with sincere effort, but the only way to truly understand is to experience it yourself. A hundred things make this place and season so special, it’s America’s best-kept secret destination for a summer road trip.

Photo credit: Pixabay – Wadegeorge88

The Midwest is HUGE.

The Midwest’s plains are expansive. 12 states rolling from field to isolated farm. Want wide open spaces? You’ve found ’em. And, even with a speed limit of 75 mph in most places, you’ll stay in this vast landscape for the next 1,200 miles – or at least 18 hours.

There’s next to no traffic…..unless you’re racing cloud shadows.

Sure, Chicago and St. Louis get a bit tight, but the highways in between are as quiet as the towns you pass.

That pristine ‘Home On The Range’ sky of empty blue is our signature; but we also get clouds so big and low, their shadows hug the ground like descending spaceships.

Country music provides a background soundtrack as common as crickets.

Doesn’t matter if you spent the first 25 years of your life laughing at it, nothing else accompanies back roads, cold beer and summer love like these songs do.

Think patriotism’s kitschy? Too bad, that’s part of our package.

In some parts, the Stars and Stripes might actually outnumber people. National pride nurtures our soil. It’s not a concept we buy into, but one we’re born into – an identity formed by our sense of place.

As is our chattiness and politeness.

Don’t be offended if someone in line at the grocery store starts asking personal questions – and then the folks behind you chime in. By the time your receipt’s printed, the whole store should know where you’re from and what you ate for dinner last night.

Mid-westerners are renowned for their bend-over-backward good manners. We never lie, we just smooth over the truth so as not to upset anyone. Which is why most of the people you pass on a sidewalk will smile openly and say “Good afternoon,” or make that two-fingered wave from their steering wheels.

Which you’ll notice on Main Streets and at block parties.

Yes, both do still exist in this oasis of peaceful, kind people. Main Street is often the hub of action (however limited it may be): mom-and-pop businesses, retirees sharing coffee and doughnuts, a sale at the local hardware store. Summer is prime time to close off the side streets, spread out a potluck and foster a sense of community.

Besides the ever-popular jello salad and hamburgers and sun tea.

Sorry, vegetarians, but this has been Beef Country for a very long time – and while it’s slowly acclimating to other dietary habits, the Midwest still makes the world’s best burgers. Iced tea left out on the back porch for 2-3 days, seasoned with fresh lemon and maybe a few pinches of sugar. Closest thing to summer you’ll ever taste.

Then there’s our farm-to-table seasonal produce.

‘Breadbasket of America’ is a well-earned title, but wheat we grow is delicious quantities. Along any farm town highway, stop at the back of a red pickup and shop for the night’s dinner: melons bigger than your head, tomatoes as plump as pillows, corn cobs the color of Aztec gold.

Standard of living is high, and prices are low.

Isn’t the best place for a road trip one where you don’t spend all your money at the first gas station?

It’s not all soy bean fields – the Midwest has lakes, too.

10,000 if you’re vising Minnesota, a few less if you’re not. Whether you want a quiet afternoon out in a canoe, or an adrenaline-packed weekend jet skiing, be sure to stop at a neighboring body of water. Rumor has it, some of these are still clear enough to be drinkable.

When your drive ends, your day doesn’t have to – welcome to the land of long, hot summer nights and summer storms.

Late sunsets and lingering fireflies ease you into nights that are never cold, just quiet. Sit over a campfire, sip a local brew and watch the world rotate. The sort you can see rush across the Plains like a herd of buffalo: dark, angry and charging.

Followed by stars.

When the population only numbers a few hundred, you definitely don’t have to worry about light pollution. Our night skies are as vast and captivating as our prairies.

The wildlife love it too. This is a land of exploration and change.

And I’m not just referring to the cows. Name a North American animal, and chances are you can find it somewhere out here. Badgers, bison, mountain lions, marmots, antelope, rattlesnakes, raccoons… keep looking, because the list keeps going.

From the original indigenous peoples to the fur traders, explorers and European immigrants who followed, the ground is etched with a history of movement. Groups came and went, sometimes peacefully and sometimes involuntarily; but always, the stories they left behind created the distinctive culture we celebrate today.

You don’t need Google Maps to route your whole trip, and you don’t need to know where you’ll sleep for the night. Treat your journey like Lewis and Clark, two of America’s most infamous adventurers, and follow the Missouri River. Or make like John Steinbeck and drive in search of the real America. Whatever you’re looking for, whatever you imagine the ultimate summer should travel should be, it’s out there somewhere.

As a South Dakota native I’m clearly biased; what are your reasons for taking a Midwest summer road trip?

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Kelli Mutchler

Kelli Mutchler left a small, Midwest American town to prove that Yanks can, and do, chose alternative lifestyles. On the road for five years now, Kelli has tried news reporting and waitressing, bungy jumping and English teaching. Currently working with Burmese women refugees in Thailand, she hopes to pursue a MA in Global Development. Opportunities and scenes for international travel are encouraged on her blog, www.toomutchforwords.com.