INSPECTION STATION
MIDWEST BEDROCK, by Kevin J. Koch
Native Midwesterner Kevin Koch freely concedes that the spaces he celebrates in “Midwest Bedrock” rarely stack up by traditional standards to the majesty of, say, the Rockies or the grandeur of the Maine coast. He likens them instead to “grace notes,” described musically as “so tiny [their] time value is not counted in the rhythm of the bar.”
And over twelve chapters, one each for the states the U.S. Census Bureau considers part of the Midwest, Koch rhythmically unpacks the geological and geographical wonders of lesser-known but no-less-interesting spaces. No Ozarks, no Six Flags, no Rushmore here. You get Wisconsin’s Ice Age Trail, the Niobrara River and northern Sandhills of Nebraska, the headwaters of the Mississippi at Lake Itasca in Minne-sota, the effigy mounds of Iowa’s Driftless Area, plus stops in Michigan, Ohio, Indi-ana, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, and the Dakotas. It’s a slow-burn whirlwind.
The featured sites are places Koch has driven to for over forty years, often with family in tow for what he calls “chaos hik-ing and camping” or long bike rides. They are locations he has explored in essays and as an outdoors/travel columnist for the Dubuque Telegraph Herald. The result is less Lonely Planet, more Henry David Thoreau, and Midwestern to the core.
“This tour of the Midwest has brought surprises in lands we thought we knew,” Koch writes. “But in the end even the out-siders get one thing right: this place is the bedrock.”
—Jeff Nazarro
Excerpt from the Winter 2024 issue of AMERICAN ROAD Magazine
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