By Mike Pound

Globe columnist

mpound@joplinglobe.com

I’m probably one of the few people I know who enjoys the trip to Emporia, Kan.

I know I’m the only person in my immediate family who enjoys the trip to Emporia. We make the trip to Emporia at least twice a year, and to my wife and our 11-year-old daughter, Emma, the trip is mostly a three-hour trek through the wastelands of Kansas.

It’s not that my wife and Emma don’t like Kansas; it’s that they don’t like driving through Kansas.

I, on the other sunflower, have been making and enjoying the trip to Emporia on a fairly regular basis for more than 30 years. Without getting too deep here, sometimes I think of the trip to Emporia as a trip though life.

You tend to notice things on a trip you’ve been making for more than 30 years. You tend to associate certain parts of the trip with certain parts of your life.

For example, there is a stretch of Highway 171 in Missouri where a railroad track runs almost parallel with the road. Occasionally there will be a train on that track, and when there is, I think about the old Katy Railroad that had a base in Parsons, Kan. Then I think about my friend Chris Limes’ dad, Bill Limes. Bill was an engineer for the Katy and was a true original. The first time I met Bill was after he climbed out of his car on a hot July afternoon and announced that he was drier than a “popcorn (crude word).”

It was, I thought at the time, the funniest thing I had ever heard. Granted, I was only 17, but still.

When we cross over to Kansas, we drive through Parsons. Well, we used to drive through Parsons. Now, with the new highway, you don’t have to drive through Parsons anymore. But on Sunday, when we made the trip to Emporia, we opted to get off the highway. Emma thought it would be a good idea to stop at McDonald’s, and my wife thought it would be a good idea to stop at the large, 24-hour retail store in Parsons. I sort of wondered why we didn’t stop at the McDonald’s and the large, 24-hour retail store in Carthage, but I figured I should keep my wondering to myself.

Turns out they’ve moved the McDonald’s and the large, 24-hour retail store in Parsons. But Parsons isn’t a big town, so we found both of them and were back on the road in less than an hour.

My wife took her time in the large, 24-hour retail store.

A few miles north of Parsons, we passed two large farm ponds. I don’t know who now owns the land where the ponds sit, but when I was in high school, a classmate’s parents did. His parents hosted a senior class party near the ponds. I still remember that party.