10/5/10 – High Plains Drifter

Thank God we’re not in Kansas anymore. I slept poorly last night and dreamed about OZ denying my wish for some supple hills. Western Kansas was warm, flat and very windy today. Eastern KS looks like Dolly Parton compared with the flatness of western KS. I asked the lady at the rest stop how long the winds will persist. She said, it would keep blowing all the way to the Colorado border and she was right. At least it was a warm southerly wind, unlike the more fierce chilly northern gale in South Dakota. She informed me that a big-rig blew over and spilled dog food all over the highway earlier this morning. Wonderful! She also told me that the massive crops that look like 3-foot corn fields is a grain called Milo that’s used as feedstock and for making ethanol. I had a hankering for roughage and ordered a plain green salad for lunch. The waitress kindly obliged my request for Eye-Tal-Yun dressing on the side.

Fortunately for KS, they have a savior named Larry who has run Prairie Dog Town with his wife for the past 44 years. What an fantastic character and a terrific place. His barnyard is filled with animals he caught; 50 rattlesnakes from the campground next door; foxes and coyotes he raised when their parents became road-kill; and five and six-legged mutated cows the local ranchers gave him that are featured by Ripley’s Believe it or Not. I spent an hour with Larry and his animals, but the best thing was hand-feeding the wild prairie dogs and coyotes. To me it was better than waiting for hours to go up a cramped tram to the top of a stainless-steal arch. Add Larry’s Prairie Dog Town in Oakley, KS to your Bucket List, but only if you're already stuck in KS.

I stopped into the Colorado Visitor’s Center and met 2 ladies who told me that volunteering for the rest stop is better than working, except the pay sucks. The road changes from asphalt to concrete as you pass from KS into CO and the landscape becomes more intersting too; trees, hills, and cool cloud formations. I called my good friend, David Chew, and arranged to have dinner with him tonight. David found me a great motel in Denver and met me there at about 7:45. We went to dinner at a terrific local fish taco joint and had a great time catching-up over super mahi-mahi soft tacos. It’s Indian summer in Denver and the temperature was about 70 degrees at 10:00.

When I got back to the motel, I called an old friend, Stacy-Rae-Schneider McKinley-Gerhard and arranged to meet her and her family after touring Denver tomorrow.

10/4/10 – Excellent BBQ in K.C.

Today’s weather was a carbon copy of yesterday - perhaps even a bit warmer. Overall, glorious. I loaded up my stuff and headed to Jack Stack in downtown Kansas City, right across the tracks from Union Station. More about Union Station later. I bellied-up to the bar and promptly ordered a half rack of hickory smoked baby-backs, extra original sauce, cheesy corn bake and baked beans with burnt ends. My impatience was rewarded with a fantastic lunch, including a local beer, for $19.50. I told the barmaid about my utter disappointment when I arrived last night to lights out. She explained that everyone in K.C. goes to Kansas Motor Speedway on Sundays to drink Budweiser and watch Billy-Bob-Jimbo-Bubba-Baker drive around in circles for 10 hours, so there’s no point in keeping a restaurant open until dinner time because everyone here is passed out-drunk by 7:00. I’m pretty sure that’s what she said; anyway, that’s what I heard. I asked her what attractions I should see while in K.C. today. Her response was a blank stare.

After a very tasty lunch, I walked over a footbridge to Union Station and saw an endless train hauling hundreds of loads of coal passing by. Union Station is a beautifully redeveloped humongous train station and entertainment center that is completely empty. There was a model train exhibit that had huge displays of working trains on every scale from G-scale to Z-scale. It was really fantastic, but apart from the maintenance crew, I was the only person there - what a shame. As I wandered the station, I saw a U.S. Post Office and decided to send home a box of T-shirts and other stuff I’ve acquired on my journey. After boxing-up all the stuff and taping it shut, I stood in a line of 10 people for about 45 minutes. When it was my turn, they postman said it would be cheaper to send it via Express Mail; He actually wanted to unload all my shit and put it into a different box so I could save $2.00 on postage. I finally convinced him to just send it parcel-post for 2-bucks more. I now understand why UPS and FedEx make huge profits and the U.S. Postal Service is bankrupt.

I had a list of sights to see: WWI Museum; Jazz History Museum; President Truman’s Ranch house. It turns out that every museum in town is closed on Mondays. After riding all over K.C. I can say that it’s a nice city, not great, but very nice. And their Chiefs are the only undefeated team in the NFL! It was after 3:00 when I hit the road west through Kansas.

Kansas is a state that only its mother, Arkansas, could love. This place is extremely flat, like a… well you know what I mean, it’s very flat. The wheat and corn have all been harvested and the flat landscape is also pretty baron and brown. This place really needs a gimmick like a big stainless steel arch to draw-in some tourists. KS really tries hard though; they play-up the whole Wizard of Oz thing and they even have a winery named Oz. It all seems a bit feeble to me. Did I mention there are lots of bugs here? My windshield looks like an insect holocaust. In fairness to KS, I did see a number of historical monuments dedicated to war heroes who lived in this state. It’s also the source of 20% of U.S. wheat production, but these are not big drawing cards for tourism. One advantage of being extremely flat is that KS sunsets last for hours. As I rode west into the sunset, the sky remained orange, pink and faint blue for over an hour after the sun had set on the distant horizon.

After the sun finally set, I pulled-into a motel in Hays, western Kansas. I met a Vietnam Vet who calls himself Roadkill because he once killed a deer on his Harley at 70 MPH and he didn’t crash. Roadkill is returning to Denver after a meeting of his Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Association in Indiana. We had a nice chat before I dismissed myself to check-in and watch the whacky second half of the Dolphins-Patriots game. Let’s just Say the Fish have a pathetic Special Teams.

10/3/10 – Beautiful Day in the Ozarks

This morning I was tempted to stay over in Springfield, MO to relax and take care of necessities like laundry and getting a haircut. Instead, I decided to get a late checkout, go take care of business, and then head northwest to KC for Jack Stack’s world famous BBQ . Jack Stack is on my personal Bucket List and it’s one of the few BBQ joint’s that has a 4-star ZAGAT rating. I decided to starve myself today to ensure the BBQ tonight will be an extra special treat. Breakfast was a bagel, coffee and juice.

I started my laundry at the motel and headed out to get a haircut. I soon found a Supercuts and was shocked that there were no Vietnamese hairdressers. After a transformation from my Hippie-biker look, I stopped at a Kum & Go to gas-up and get my 4th pair of cheap sunglasses so far. Somehow, I lost my sunglasses again yesterday. After I told the clerk that Kum & Go sounds like a drive-thru sperm bank, he told me the company held a contest to name their new designer coffee; the overwhelming favorite was “Kum-Cup“, but Corporate decided to go with the safer distant second choice of “Go-Cup”. I’m not making this up.

I hit the road at around 12:30 under crystal clear blue skies, cool temperature and a light northern breeze. Perfect! I’ve seen signs most of yesterday for the “Fantastic Caverns” and I’m usually not a sucker for superlatives, but today I was only planning to ride around 200 miles and I had time to burn, so what the heck. The 5 mile ride to the caverns on a quaint, beautiful Ozark road was worth the $22 price of admission. I was expecting something akin to the World’s biggest ball of yarn, but was very pleasantly surprised that these caverns are truly Fantastic! They were discovered by a guy in the 1,700’s when his dog chased a varmint into the cave. He was afraid to explore it so he hired 12 ladies from the Springfield Athletic Club to explore it for him. During the Civil War, it was used as a hide-out. During Prohibition, a steam generator was used to light it up and it became a Speak-Easy Casino and Bar until 2 guys a girl and a gun resulted in a dead man and the Sheriff closed it down. The KKK occupied it for a dozen years before it was turned into a venue for Hillbilly concerts for performers like Buck Owens and the Buckaroos. A rich family finally bought the place and turned it into a tourist attraction that’s one of only four caverns in the world that has motorized tours. It’s amazing to think that the stalactites and stalagmites form at a maximum rate of 1 inch per century.

It was 3:00 by the time I hit the road towards the promised land of Jack Stack. It was a pleasant ride, despite all the road work; lots of oak, hickory, lakes and rivers, with a few trees that are changing color. The notable scenic items in Missouri are the numerous Bible Colleges and strangely named churches like the Baptist Church of the Sacred Bleeding Heart of Jesus.

When I arrived at my motel, there was a Harley parked in front with a CA license plate. I met big Jim at the front desk and he’s a model airplane pole racer from Cupertino, CA. We chatted for awhile and I’m hopeful he’ll teach me to fly when we get back to CA. I watched the first quarter of the Sunday night game and then headed 7 miles west to Jack Stack for the treat of a lifetime!

When I arrived at around 9:00, Jack’s was closed. I felt like Chevy Chase arriving at Wally World. Are you kidding me? The world’s best BBQ joint is closed at 9:00 and I’m starving. It turn’s out the entire Bible Belt shuts down on Sundays. Don’t they know that the Sabbath is Saturday?

I had to settle for a Whopper tonight, but I will eat at Jack Stack tomorrow.