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Published: April 24th 2011
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The train left Albuquerque on time and spent nearly eighteen hours winding its way through mountain passes and along the side of valleys of New Mexico before heading straight along the flat landscape of Colorado, right through the middle of the USA. I bet photography of the train on its journey would look amazing. It stopped at tiny towns like Raton, NM and Trinidad, CO. New Mexico was sunny and dry but overnight heading through Kansas, there was the most spectacular lightening show. It went on for ages and when I arrived in Kansas City (KC) at about 630 in the morning, still not quite light, it was directly overhead and hammering it down with rain. There is something about thunder and lightening thats really cool.
Given how excellent the California Merlot is, it's amazing how bad Amtraks Shiraz is, even though according to the bottle, it comes from California, but it still served nicely as a night cap. I really think that buses and trains are the ways to do the USA. It would be quicker to fly but then the scenary which is amazing would be missed, and that has to be seen.
KC is almost slap
bang in the middle of the USA and straddles the state borders of Kansas and Missouri. The Missouri side contains the central part of the city. It's just like a miniture big US city. KC hasn't really got a tourist scene and every time I speak, I can see they are suprised to be talking to a Brit and for once, no one asked me if I'm Australian! There aren't any hostels so I treated myself to a hotel. The Best Western - Kansas City is ok for about 85 bucks a night, just over GBP50.00. It's a nice standard hotel room but although it's a few miles out of the city, they have a free shuttle that they use to drop people off and pick them up again. I used it to get me around :-)
KC is the home of Hallmark Cards, and the Crown Centre, a shopping and office area is entirely owned by them. They have a visitor centre that goes through the history of the company. There isn't much going on downtown during they day and the highlight was a food court that had a 'Great Steak' which sold, presumably, great steak! A 'Wrap
and Go', which presumably did wraps and let you take them away! And a 'Curry in a Hurry'! Which presumably do currys for people who are in a hurry?!?! Oh and a Subway too! In the evening though, the Power and Lights district, downtown is an area for bars and clubs. It is a self contained area which you need ID to get into. For 15 dollars I got as much pizza as I could eat and free drinks until 11pm, and I could take my drinks in to other bars! Well worth the money... Cherry vodka and Sprite was my drink of choice :-) Once I'd has as much as I could I called the hotel to send the free shuttle to pick me up :-)
The Country Club Plaza seems to be a main shopping area and is a really pleasant place to be for a look around and some lunch. It's a very well kemp area and is aimed directly at 'middle America'. Lots of boutiquey shopping alongside a riverside. Just a short walk east is the Nelson Atkins museum of art which I really liked. In particular, the idea of cubism which tries to look
at something from several different points of view at once, rather than just one. Facinating stuff!
I realised that there are no public phones in the area so came a cropper when I wanted to ring the hotel to pick me up. It was easliey sorted by the Apple store. I used one of their phones. I thought their helpfulness might just be a clever bit of marketing but I think they are just genuinely helpful. So, thanks Apple Store Kansas City! Its the second time on my big trip an Apple store has helped me out :-)
St Louis, about 200 miles east, had a tornado last night which ripped the airport and peoples homes apart. It's the biggest tornado the area has seen for 44 years!
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