By Joel Reichenberger, ACN Board Member 

You’re supposed to stop, right?

You’re driving down some distant road, and you pass something interesting. You came for something else, an interview with a nearby farmer, or photography of a ranch 20 more miles down the highway. You didn’t come for this windmill, or sunset, or herd of cattle, but you can’t help but notice. “Hm. That’d be a great photo.”

Except I didn’t stop.

I was driving down just such a road late last summer, finished up with a small conference and on my way to something else, and I drove by a sight that caught my eye. At the time, at Progressive Farmer we needed art for an upcoming issue of the magazine. The cover story was about finance, how banking has changed over the years, and how farmers today can shop for a new lender. For a photographer, that translates into: “something close to impossible to effectively illustrate.”

But there I was, driving through rural Northeast Kansas, and my route took me right by an abandoned bank.

“Oh… maybe…” I thought.

I turned off on the town’s next street — this town was so small, I think they just called it “the other street” — and circled around for another look.

The word “bank” was built into the front of the old, brick building, but it definitely was not a bank anymore. It had potential as a photo, but my brain quickly began working against me.

“Is this even going to be a good photo? The sun’s in exactly the wrong spot.”

“Remember, your camera is all packed up in the back seat. Do you really want to get it out and pack it up again?”

I was supposed to meet friends in a nearby city for dinner, and I was already pushing it on time.

“You’re going to be late for your friends because of this?”

So, I didn’t stop. I got back on the main road, headed out of town and on with life.

Except I didn’t really go on with life. I kept thinking about that bank.

I almost turned around when I was still a mile away, then thought about it again at five miles.

The scene kept improving in my head, my brain magnifying the error.

“Did it just say ‘BANK’ on it… no, I think it said ‘Farmer’s Bank.’ … and wasn’t there a big ‘Closed’ sign in the window? And geez, didn’t it line up perfectly with the grain elevator on the other side of town? I think I saw a farmer out front with a sign that said ‘Let me help you shop for a new lender.’”

The more I thought about it, the clearer it became that the whole scene told a story, a 100-year old bank building perfectly placed to showcase the complex stresses both farmers and lenders face in the modern world.

The cover photo for an impossible-to-illustrate magazine cover was right there, and I’m so lazy I didn’t even get out of my car!

I kept driving, but felt awful.

I felt so rotten that 20 minutes later, when I drove by a rural hospital perched behind a green field of corn — we always need stock photos of rural hospitals — I photographed it for 45 minutes.

I’ve stumbled across some of my favorite photos and stories when I have stopped and gotten out of the car. I got out of the car for photos so many times driving home after a photo shoot in northwest Nebraska a few years ago that I ultimately had to get a hotel room and arrive home a day later than expected, loaded with photos of storm clouds and trains, antelope and this one cool stretch of blacktop with a distant tree. (You had to be there.)

Great things happen when you get out of the car. It’s one of the universal truths of what we do, and one of the great joys of roaming the backroads of America.

But, when I got home from my Kansas trip, I was still thinking about that bank.

I retraced my route on Google Maps and finally figured out what small town I’d been driving through. Then, I found my bank, right on the corner where I’d left it.

Except, it wasn’t quite like I’d remembered. The lettering in the brick above the door does just say “bank.” The view does not line up with a grain elevator, but you can see a semi-abandoned-looking house, and the only thing in the window is an indication that this bank is now a bar.

It was fine, but I doubt it’d have run big in the magazine and wasn’t at all right for the cover.

I want to stop. I try to stop. But we all have lives, and our jobs can be stressful, especially when we’re on the road. Sometimes there are friends or family waiting at home or at the next stop for dinner, and that’s important too.

So this year, I urge you to stop the car if you can. Maybe treasure awaits. And if you can’t, or even just don’t want to, keep driving to where you’re going, because maybe there’s treasure there, too.

Cut yourself some slack. That photo of the bank would probably have sucked anyway.

-Reichenberger is senior editor at Progressive Farmer