Next Location: westbound eastbound
We’re 1 degree east of John Wesley Powell’s 100th meridian that defines the beginning of the arid west. Based on the treelessness of this broad expanse, I’d say there’s no doubt we’ve already arrived.
The surveyor’s monument— like most of the others along the Kansas-Oklahoma line— is stamped not with a code or a mileage indicator but with a simple word; here it’s simply “May.” We reflect on this briefly before making the panoramic view east from a platform on top of the Subaru. While packing up the tripod, a red pickup slows and stops, and the driver, a man about my age, rolls down his window. I climb off my vehicle and walk up to his. He wanted to know what I was up to. I explained that I was photographing along the 37th parallel from Missouri to Nevada and asked him where he was from. “Right here,” he said, gesturing to a ranch house and barns a quarter mile away. He explained he used to oversee family farming and ranching property over a wide area, noting that he used to fly a plane from the airstrip next to his barns to keep tabs on thousands of acres.
At the end of a pleasant conversation, I thanked him for stopping, offering my name and a “Pleased to meet you.” He returned the compliment along with his name— Bob May. “Oh,” I said. “like May on the surveyor’s monument?” “My grandfather,” he said. His family had been among the first settlers of the area.
Next Location: westbound eastbound