Hello Kansas City!

 

by Pa Rock

Traveling Fool

I rolled up in front of Tim and Erin's home in Roeland Park, Kansas, at 4:30 this afternoon after 560 miles on the road today.  Rosie was thrilled to see me and has not left my side since I arrived, and I was thrilled to see her.  I have felt extremely guilty about leaving her ever since I drove away a week ago last Monday morning.  I won't be doing that any more, Rosie, I promise!  Tomorrow we are headed home to check on Nick and Gypsy.

I began today in Sidney, Nebraska, and have spent the day driving through portions of four states:  Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas.  It all looked about the same.  Most of the drive took place in the flat farmlands of Nebraska.   Much of the land reminded me of Wyoming, but while Wyoming  places large metal sculptures up close to where the farmlands meet the highways to add to the local charm, in Nebraska they bring their old  rusted farm machinery and junk up next to the highways to show it off.  Missouri also seems to take a great deal of pride in its junk.

I also noticed that the Missouri Department of Transportation has quit trimming trees and many of the important signs along the highway that I traveled (Interstate 29 and US 71) were hidden by leafy tree branches.  Missouri has basically quit funding its public schools and reportedly has billions of dollars in reserve - and since the legislators won't spend it on kids, they could at least trim a few damned trees!

I have experienced a bunch of hotels over the last two weeks, none of them were reasonably priced.  I did note a couple of trends which I thought were interesting.  First, wifi passwords are seldom used by hotels anymore.  Any move away from passwords is good news as far as I am concerned!  Second, every single place that I stayed had their toilet paper rolling off of the top of the roll instead of off of the bottom, as God intended.

There were reports of flooding in Nebraska, but I drove across the entire state, from Wyoming to Iowa, and didn't see any evidence of high water.

I drove into Kansas City this afternoon from the north, something that I haven't done in more than ten years, and it was quite disorienting.  But I resisted the urge to call Tim for directions and managed to  get down-and-around-town.  I keep telling myself that if I could manage driving through Calgary, Alberta, during rush hour with really sketchy directions, I could certainly handle Kansas City - and I did!  So one positive from my trip out west is that it was a confidence-builder.

Most of the radio chatter as I drove today was about last night's awful presidential debate.  I have plenty of thoughts on the subject, but will save them until I get home and the political dust starts to settle.  It's a mess, but hopefully there is still time to get things fixed and keep the orange, lying lunatic and his Nazi minions out of the White House.

This part of Kansas is under a tornado watch this evening.  Me and little Rosie certainly don't want to get swept off to Oz by a Kansas cyclone!

It's great to be back!