My Kansas Kronikles: The House Where Nobody Lives

Well the paint was all cracked
It was peeled off of the wood
Papers were stacked on the porch
Where I stood
And the weeds had grown up
Just as high as the door
There were birds in the chimney
And an old chest of drawers
Looks like no one will ever
Come back to the
House were nobody lives
Tom Waits, House Where Nobody Lives, 1999.

I saw a few abandoned houses in the Flint Hills region of Kansas, and the semi-arid climate of western Kansas is a similarly challenging place to put down stakes.

This house where nobody lives is in Logan County on US Route 83, America's Loneliest Road.

Just as people struggle to put down roots in the Great Plains, so do trees.

Next: The Monument Rocks

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