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Kansas is a turn-off to the cross-country dreamer. People lament the way it lays flat like a big sigh between the Rust Belt and Colorado.
I’ve ventured in and out of Kansas on more than one occasion. The only time it bothered me was in a polar vortex that happened to cross those Great Plains on Valentine’s Day 2021.
Hank1 and I were heading West, dreaming of the mild weather we’d find past the mountains. Our day-one trek was ambitious: 14 hours from Cincinnati to the far side of Kansas. The idea was to rip off the Midwest like a bandaid. By the second day of our trip we’d be hiking in the Rockies.
For several hours, we drove cautiously along a snowy I-70. Our place of shelter was in Colby, Kansas, inside of a steel, arched garage-turned cozy Airbnb2.
Two parts of the previous sentence are true: Colby and garage. Two parts are false: shelter and cozy.
After our outlandishly long drive, we were ready to rest. We found our destination in the dark Kansas countryside with some help from the Airbnb host’s directions. A bright, blue gate embellished with a yellow sun told us where to turn off the empty road. We drove down a long driveway, which crackled with frost beneath the tires.
As we came around the side of a grain bin, our headlights illuminated a garage door covered in windows, and the four-post bed centered behind it. The thermostat on the car dash read -23º.
Getting inside was an urgent process, but once we had the garage door lifted we realized there was no salvation behind the glass. I turned on the single, weak space heater and the two electric blankets while Jake started a fire in the wood burning stove. The supply of firewood left for us by our host was portioned for a Girl Scout troop on s’mores night in July, not a survivalist situation in an uninsulated shed during a polar vortex.
It didn’t help that the only path to the bathroom — located in the grain bin — was out the garage door, which immediately sucked away any modicum of heat we’d managed to create.
The electric blankets were our saviors. After an hour, the frozen panels of fabric and wire became malleable and slightly warm, and we climbed inside fully bundled, hats pulled down over our freezing eyeballs.
The sun rose by the foot of the bed. In the dawn, and under the now-toasty electric blankets, the winter scene looked charming. We looked out at a horizon of bluish, pinkish snow and our little rental car waiting for adventure, like Jack from Titanic clinging to the piece of wood in anticipation of our future together.
The bed behind the garage door had been our false deliverance in the night, and the car was our beacon of false hope in the morning. Without its own electric blanket to save if from the negative temperatures, this Jack, too, had perished in the freezing waters.
The engine puttered out once, then again. Our hearts sank, our bodies shivered, and our bellies growled because we’d been too cold to eat dinner. But then, on the third try, the car started.
On the way to the closest McDonalds, the engine’s temperature hovered over hot hot hot, while the air it blew out was cold cold cold. There was nothing do but keep rolling along the country road towards civilization.
We made it to the McDonalds, and though we were so close to hot coffee and McGriddles, we stayed in the car, babying the idling engine with our thoughts and prayers.
What I learned on this journey was that a frozen engine takes as long as a frozen electric blanket to warm up. After 45 minutes, we felt warm air from the vents. All hope was restored. We circled through the drive through3 in celebration, Bob Marley blasting for warm, summery vibes, and made our way to Colorado.
This is Jake’s first name, y’all.
If you want to stay in this Airbnb, it’s probably quite nice in the summer.
I hope you got a refund for that miserable Airbnb. I feel depressed jus reading what you went through!