Eight insights from The Midwest

Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series about our recent 600-mile driving trip from St. Louis east to Cleveland. Thursday, I wrote about a banquet we held for a group of graduating seniors in Taylorville, Ill., whom I got to know during Covid. Today I’m offering eight insights gleaned from the rest of the trip.

THE MIDWEST is a world of neat farms, red barns and grain silos. Truck-heavy freeways straighter than a yardstick. Brick. Lots of brick.

It’s a world where the period at the end of each small town’s sentence is a Dollar General. Where, unlike our drizzle, rain comes hard and heavy, often with thunder and lightning. And where Oregonians, for the most part, are curiosities.

“Tell me,” said one, “about this patchouli oil you have out there. Never smelled the stuff.”

Here are eight insights I took away from the trip:

Insight 1: The world is flat, at least in these parts

We traveled east from Illinois, through Indiana to Ohio. The three-state high point is 1,549 feet, or roughly half the elevation of the Coburg Hills’ highest point (Mt. Tom, 3,173 feet). The only discernible hills we drove over were between Columbus, Ohio, (home of Ohio State) and Cleveland.

After my trip to the Midwest, hiking Spencer Butte was like hiking a tree-studded Mt. Everest.

Insight 2: The Midwest has deep respect for history

Abe Lincoln is a rock star in Illinois. In Taylorville’s Christian County Courthouse, his image abuts the men’s bathroom; stares at attorneys and juries in courtrooms; and stands outside in statue form.

In the 1840s and 1850s, Abe, as an attorney, traveled the historic Eighth Judicial Circuit on horseback. Taylorville served as the “last stop” on his circuit. Fun fact: my next-door neighbor in Eugene, Ron Lake, grew up in Taylorville and remembers that the official documents for the land his house was on were signed by Lincoln himself.

In Springfield, Lincoln is the catalyst for more than 5,000 jobs and about $600 million in annual travel expenditures.