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Published: January 13th 2008
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Obfuscator writes: We woke up to a lot of frost in on our gear. This didn't really surprise me much, since by the time I had gone to bed the previous night, a fine layer of condensation had already settled on all my stuff. Frost is always a big nuisance, since it makes your stuff just damp enough that you have to dry them to avoid, well, general unpleasantness.
I think I failed to mention in the last entry that we pulled into this campground at about 8:00 PM or so last night. When we did, we were sort of cruising around looking for a camp site we liked, since their payment envelopes wanted us to select a specific site. As we drove through the park, we were followed pretty much the whole way by some SUV that had mysteriously been lurking until we turned onto the right road. We figured it was most likely a ranger, but the lack of any visible markings or use of any signals put us a bit on edge. When we finally selected a site, the SUV pulled in behind us and blocked our exit, and some abrasive old lady started jabbering at me
about paying. Since we had every intention of paying, I wasn't too concerned, but apparently in Missouri they have rather . . . overenthusiastic park enforcement. Eventually she decided to believe me, I guess, and left us alone so we could actually do so.
We left the park as soon as we had our stuff packed up, and headed back toward Kansas City. It turns out we had camped near Kearny, the birthplace of Jesse James. In nearby Liberty, they have a museum of Jesse James, and we made that our first destination of the day. When we got to the museum though, we found that it wouldn't be open until later in the day, and not wanting to waste that much time, we continued on, content that we can always find out more about Jesse James at some future point. Besides, there was an equally interesting looking museum just a bit further south.
Just east of Kansas City is Independence, Missouri, the town that President Truman called home, and location of his Presidential Library and Museum. It was a very slow day when we arrived there, so we had no crowds to contend with. It was nice.
We just sort of got to wander around the museum and soak in information about Truman and his presidency. It was interesting to learn about him, since at least for me, he's sort of a little known president. I always have thought of him as sort of the bridge between FDR and Ike, and not much else. Though I'm not entirely sure that this was the wrong assessment, he certainly confronted enough on his own that it doesn't tell the whole story.
Truman rose from pretty obscure origins, and managed to become first a County official, then a U.S. Senator, then Vice President, and finally, President. Moreover, while he initially became President through his role as Vice President to FDR, he did manage to beat a popular Republican candidate, while in a four way race including two other Democrats, so he was more popular than many gave him credit for, I guess. He was a strong decision maker, from dropping the bomb to backing Israel and getting into the Korean War and removing MacArthur from command. His judgment may have been questionable at times; Like FDR, he seemed to share a blind spot for the peril of Stalin, at
least until later, by which point much of the damage had already been done. Nevertheless, he was definitely a man who stood accountable for his administration, something that I think we've sorely missed pretty much ever since.
From there, we left Kansas City, and drove on to Topeka, Kansas. We had a desire to see another State Capitol, and Topeka was on the way to our next destination anyway. Kansas looks mighty flat. Perhaps not quite as flat as North Dakota, but mighty close. Topeka seems to follow what we've deemed the “Last City Before the End of Civilization” rule. It's really not that big, but it has the sprawl and business of a much larger city. It also has the third tallest capitol dome in the country. This isn't terribly shocking when you look at it, because it is indeed, a very tall capitol. I guess at one time, it was the tallest, but then some other states decided that they couldn't let Kansas beat them. The first thing we thought upon going into the Capitol itself, was how shabby it looked. It became quickly apparent though, that this veneer of shabbiness was basically a result of the
massive renovations they are undertaking there. There's some pretty nifty stuff to see in their capitol, including some good views of their rotunda, and some cool murals. They also have an awesome old elevator in the capitol that's still operational. It's one of those neat old ones with a cage and an operator that you need to actually make it go. The House was closed, between the renovations and the Press conference. The Senate was open though, so we checked that out. Restored most recently in 2005, it was perhaps a bit on the ostentatious side, but still pretty. The real treat came when we got up to the top floor of the main building, and were surprised to find a lady up there who would give us a tour of the dome itself. All the other capitols we've been to have had their domes closed, and apparently so did this one until about two years ago when they opened it for tours.
The tour involved a lot of stairs, so I certainly wouldn't recommend it for everyone. It was pretty neat though, since we got to go up the interior of the dome, and then into the space
between the interior glass dome and the exterior copper dome, and then up on top of that one as well. The capitol is the tallest building in Kansas, and I guess they've passed laws that will keep it that way (at least according to our tour guide; Onaxthiel and I have our doubts about this, after seeing downtown Kansas City. We think it may be more like the ordinance in Madison that prevents any building in the city from being as tall or taller than it, but that it may not apply state-wide.). It was neat to see the city from the top though. You could see for miles around, including the grain elevator in Topeka, that used to be the biggest in the world, and the tall building near the capitol, on top of which the owners had built a beautiful house, in anticipation of Kansas, and Topeka in particular, growing a lot more than they ever did. The interior of the dome also had lots of graffiti, including two from a guy from Oshkosh, WI, which was pretty amusing to us.
When we got down from the tour, it was about time to jet. For one thing,
our parking meter had expired about twenty minutes previous. We grabbed some lunch in a nearby sandwich shop, and then drove on to Manhattan, Kansas, where an army buddy of Onaxthiel's goes to school. We walked around the campus of Kansas State for a while, waiting for him to get off work, and then went out on the town before crashing for the night.
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