As a Pacific Northwesterner, when I visited the Kansas City area it almost made me queasy looking at the horizons and not seeing foothills, mountains, or water. I really did not expect how disorienting it was going to feel. I mean I didn't expect it to feel like anything. But all of a sudden it was like vertigo, or like I could fall off the earth into the sky. I didn't realize how much of my life was constantly in a valley or on a hill next to a valley.
My mother has this problem, she complains when there's 'too much sky' due to unbroken flat terrain. This place would be her personal hell. WAY too much sky.
Personally I don't think the mountains are hell I actually think the scenery is beautiful but it definitely is disorienting. It makes me feel boxed in kinda I dunno it's hard to explain.
I do love the big skies of the prairies though. On a dark night the sky is full of starts which, to me, is more beautiful than the mountain scenery. The big puffy clouds slowly floating by on a hot summer day are quite nice as well.
Same. Grew up in the Appalachians and lived there my whole life until I joined the military. So far Texas, and South Carolina have been an incredibly strange feeling.
South central Indiana has several large swatch of rolling hills, and it's also the hardwood capital of the world, so you won't see an area with more hard oaks, maples, etc. In the fall with all the leaves different colors it's very pleasing.
But yeah outside of that it's flat and can get boring.
This reminds me of The Expanse books, where the people from Mars will freak out being on Earth and the Belters would absolutely lose their shit if they ever came to Earth and saw an open sky.
I have never experienced such openness before, I wonder if I would have a similar reaction.
I had an opposite experience before being in a deep forest. I was laying on a bench looking up at the tall trees surrounding me, not much sky visible. It felt like I was enveloped or cradled by the earth, it was a very calming and natural feeling. The wind would blow and it sounded like the ocean in the trees, it felt like the earth was breathing.
I’m from Seattle and my friend lives in Southern Alberta. We drove from her town to Calgary, basically 2 hours on flat ground with NOTHING else in sight. It was wild and I couldn’t do it. Felt much better once we went up north to Banff.
Yeah, I live in Lincoln and it's fine in town, but as soon as you drive out of town, I totally get how people back in the day got the winter wind-swept plains madness.
A friend of mine had the same reaction when they visited me in North Dakota! (They grew up in Utah and have only lived in mountain areas) They mentioned that it felt like being in the middle of the ocean with how disorienting it is.
For me it’s the opposite, if I’m in a large city I get almost claustrophobic by being surrounded by buildings. I will never visit NYC again for that reason, thought it was a super cool place and loved the Broadway shows, but it made me feel way too uncomfortable.
And I experienced the opposite moving from Texas to the PNW. It’s was oddly disconcerting NOT seeing the horizon all the time.
I’m getting used to it now and I can see how the closeness of the trees can be insulating in a way. But occasionally I need some wide open spaces, and I can take a jaunt over the Cascades and get some breathing room.
East coast where I grew up has a lotta visual clutter too. Driving around Wyoming had to at effect for me.
I understand “Big Sky” now like it just looks .. bigger .. I’d love to go to badlands and in the leadup to it drive around somewhere thats totally flat for miles.
I live in Alaska currently and I find real mountains to be a little claustrophobic haha. I think I’m finding east coast scenery was my happy medium.
Meanwhile I have the opposite problem. Lived on the prairies my whole life and then I went to university in Montreal for 2 years. Don’t get me wrong, Montreal is beautiful. But living downtown surrounded by skyscrapers made me feel sooooo claustrophobic and trapped. I used to take the metro to the very end of the line just so I could stand in a Walmart parking lot to see the sky and not have tall buildings right around me. lol
Lol I had a different reaction moving from Midwest (including KC area) and eventually ending up in the PNW. My reaction was mostly "there's so much green!"
I trained in Calgary and one of my instructors took me to a neighboring town. On the very open road I commented that I could see the curvature of the Earth. He was not impressed.
haha finally someone puts it into words…I get nauseous even laying on a blanket and looking straight up at the sky for too long. wide open flat spaces are disorienting. there’s gotta be a term for this!
Ah, yeah so I was actually in Overland Park, not KC proper. But I understand that whole region is not nearly as flat as western Kansas. I just poked around in Google maps on some random big intersections and I can see that yeah there is a rolling raising or falling to the ground, but still every direction the horizon is just a horizon. I think that's what it really is. Like when I drive through rural areas outside of Seattle, even if I'm in a flat patch, the horizon is never flat - the horizon is big mountains. Maybe distant mountains, but mountains nonetheless.
I live in Southern California now, and it's still the same. You can set me down on any random rooftop at high noon and it wouldn't take any time to orient myself by looking to the horizons for the local mountains. In Seattle you can't even look across ocean water without seeing mountains on the other side.
It really is neat how many people have said that (and who have had a similar feeling to me). It's a reminder that we as people aren't just naturally cut out for one type of home. We can make many places feel safe and homey.
Nebraska isn't as flat as one would think unless you are traveling the Platte River valley along I-80 and I'd wager Omaha is as hilly if not even more hilly than KC too.
Yeah, I moved from Louisiana to Nebraska and I get the flat comment all the time. But Louisiana with it's river flood plains from the Red and Mississippi is 1,000x flatter than Nebraska.
What's crazy is KC is very hilly and forested compared to anything west of it. There's levels of flatness you can scarcely comprehend in between KC and Denver.
To be fair I wasn't in KC Missouri. I was really in the Overland Park area. Idk if that is a flatter area. I would pretty much go to Sprint's HQ, the hotel, and a BBQ place with a local internet friend - so I don't have a good geographic sense of the region apart from that limited-but-repeated work trip agenda.
100 miles west of KC you’ll be in the beautiful rolling Flint Hills, about the most beautiful part of KS especially in the spring when the grass is a deep fabulous green
Yeah in the context of the sub it does seem like they’re more interested in the creepy / scary aspect. But I don’t think it necessarily has to be like that to be “liminal.”
Agreed. Liminal spaces are more about taking something familiar and sticking it in a different context, it makes our brains go "wait this isn't how I usually experience this, what's going on??"
A great example is visiting a familiar chain like McDonald's when you're in a different city. They usually look nearly identical inside despite being in a different location. For a little bit, your brain expects to walk outside into your usual city and not the new one. Hope this helps!
Imagine several people that know that like the back of their hand and travel that several times daily. You might see miles of fence that looks identical, but having put that fence in I know the wire, the posts and what was going on while I built it.
Grew up in the suburbs and this feels very comforting to me too
(Then again I've had to commute to and from downtown of a large city because of school and my opinion of big cities has gone down since I was a kid lol)
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u/-Ximena 26d ago
This is terrifying.