by Pa Rock
Interstate Cruiser
Day two of my trip west took me from Roeland Park, Kansas, to Burlington, Colorado - a straight run along Interstate 70 of over 400 miles. Eastern Kansas has some trees and scenery, western Kansas is just Kansas, lying flat beside a highway that is very straight and boring - pun intended. Several big "Trump Country" signs along the way, and I heard the area referenced that way on the radio as well.
I had planned on either driving across Nebraska or South Dakota, but came to I-70 first and decided that since I hadn't gone that way in over forty years, what the hell! So, I took the first fork in the road just a couple of miles from where I had started out this morning.
My drive took me south of Leavenworth where I was a civilian social worker with the Army during most of 2005, but I didn't turn north to revisit that part of my life - maybe next time. I also drove just south of Ft. Riley, Home of the Big Red One (1st Infantry Division), where I attended ROTC summer camp in 1969 and served as a Light Truck Platoon Leader with the Army during the last half of 1971. It was through that short stint at Ft. Riley that I got to be a part of Operation Reforger III and play war games around southern Germany for six weeks. Great times!
Much of the eastern portion of I-70 in Kansas is a toll road, which i knew from my history in that area, and I saw signs today to that effect. But I never encountered any toll booths, and forty years ago they had been common. Later in the day Tim and I were talking on the phone and I asked him what the deal was - I had been on a toll road but paid no tolls. He said that changed several months ago. It is still a toll road, but now they take a picture of your license plate as you fly by and send a bill to your home. The objective was to eliminate the jobs of the people who worked in the toll booths. More government workers getting screwed. (Elon, was that one yof your genetically deficient brain children?)
As soon as I got past Salina, which is about halfway across the state, big windmills that generate electricity began appearing - lots and lots of them. Trump seems to be seriously opposed to wind and solar energy, but the rest of the country is moving on. I'm sure he would become a fan if he could just figure out a way for his family to profit from alternative energies - but that sounds like too much serious work. Crypto and patriotic Bibles are much easier to peddle.
I did see two trucks going east on the interstate which were transporting blades for the big windmills. They are enormous! Each truck had a very long extension on its trailer just to carry one blade.
I passed close by Abilene, Kansas, the boyhood home of Dwight Eisenhower and the place where his presidential library is located. One of Ike's early duty assignments was at Ft. Leavenworth. I also skirted by Russell, Kansas, the boyhood home of US Senators Bob Dole (R-KS) and Arlen Specter (R-PA). Today Russell has a population of about 4,400. It was undoubtedly much smaller when Bob and Arlen were boys there.
There were also many motorhomes out on the Interstate. I passed a convoy of five almost identical ones, each towing a jeep-type of vehicle - and each of the five had license plates from different states. Not sure what that was about - a convention of rich old people one supposes. There were many others along the way as well. I lost count but had to have passed several dozen. I looked for Clarence and Ginny, but my car sits too low for me to see the driver and co-pilot. The Thomases probably go to more interesting places than Kansas.
After several hours of driving in a very straight line across Kansas, I determined that my goal for the day was to make it to the Colorado border. I did, and Burlington was the first town I encountered, so i dropped anchor and spent the night. I stayed at the Chaparral Motor Inn, an older refurbished motel that was burprisingly nice
Look for more about my adventures on the road in this space tomorrow. This morning I am headed due not to western Nebraska and then west into southernWyoming.
(Is it true that Trump's presidential library is going to have a casino, or is that just a scurrilous rumor? Please don't repeat it if it's just a rumor.)
When I was a kid, we went on vacation out west almost every year. From a farm in northern Missouri on US 36 clear to the Rockies. No interstates in the early years. With no air conditioning in the old farm truck, we would sweat and Dad would cuss about Kansas. My dad hated the drive across Kansas and used to say that they should turn it into a lake. Eventually, there was both interstate highways and air conditioning. After that, he said that parts of it were pretty. I guess it's all relative. Wish I were there.
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