Colorado Springs to St. Louis, MO, April 14 - 24, 2013

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THE BASICS

We woke on Tuesday to a light dusting of snow and very cold temperatures, but set out to continue our journey. We drove as far as Garden City, Kansas. Next day, we started toward Wichita but discovered the wind from the north as we were driving east-west was frightening. So we followed advice at a Dodge City visitors center and headed on a northeastward diagonal to I-70 to Salina. Our next day's short drive was to Abilene, where we toured the Eisenhower boyhood home and museum. Friday, on to Paxico, where we stayed two nights. We spent some time at Fort Riley but our main interest was to drive through the Flint Hills south of Paxico, to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, the largest remaining undeveloped stretch of prairieland. After a brief side trip into Topeka where not much was open on a Sunday morning (although we did drive by the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site - the school building) we headed on to Lawrence. We were warm outside, it seemed like the first time in days, and enjoyed seeing the Univerity of Kansas campus, and especially visiting the Spencer Museum of Art. On to Kansas City, where we visited Union Station, the Money Museum at the Federal Reserve Building, and the Hallmark (greeting card) Museum. We spent two nights in Columbia, Missouri, the first in a Walmart parking lot and the second in a mobile home park, mostly huddling inside all day as it poured outside. On to St. Louis, on a sunny, pleasant day, and we parked in a casino's RV park.

THE FLUFF

When we entered Kansas, I saw strange black dots on hillsides and gradually realized that they were feedlots, enormous assemblies of cattle beefing up for market. It made me think uncomfortably of the lovely filet mignon I had just eaten.

In our campground in Garden City, the roads had names like Dorothy Lane, Toto Street. Apparently they are used to the wind and reminders of being blown away by it don't scare them. Well, it was dreadful for me, and as we crossed Kansas, we had to unhook a few times because I was simply terrified in the RV. I will forever now understand why some interstates get closed out west when the wind is heavy. I am hoping, fervently, that Missouri will be milder...

The past week has of course been very traumatic for all of us. It will take a long time to assimilate, much less understand, the Marathon bombings. Waking to the news on Friday morning was as startling as I can remember, and we stayed tuned all day to NPR (the only news we could get) until the capture. The defeat of such a limited gun control bill I also found depressing, though that was eclipsed by the Boston news.

Before we left Colorado Springs, we had enjoyed a lovely "romantic, candlelit" dinner - filet mignon for each of us. When they don't give you steak knives, it is a clue that the meat is incredibly tender. Wow. And we toured what seemed to me to be the hugest luxury hotel I have ever seen, The Broadmoor, built to draw tourists to the exquisite mountain environment.

We had hoped to be tourists in Dodge City but a cold rain and wind made us get out of Dodge as fast as we could. We stopped at a little town where John spent an hour or so in an oil and gas museum. We did thoroughly enjoy our visit to the Eisenhower Museum in Abilene, which is a charming small town. Amid the crazinesses of this week, the steady goodness of Ike was an important reassurance. Of course at a site like this, the best about a person is presented, but truly he did accomplish many remarkable things. Ike is not a constant subject for biographers; it seems a bit of a shame that someone not especially flamboyant is just not as interesting. It was neat to see the boyhood home and to be reminded of the solid values that were inculcated in all those boys.

It has become interesting, here in Kansas, to decide what sites we care enough about to visit. We have a Kansas guidebook, and of course the internet, yet after seven months of road tripping there is somewhat of a sense of "been there, done that." Fortunately, John and I don't have much trouble agreeing on what we want to see. And it is strange but true that a "drive-by" can hold significance, e.g. just driving past the Brown v. Board school building. Somehow on train trips through Kansas, I had gotten the impression that it is flat, but it is very hilly. And this state has fascinating historical significances.

I think we had hoped that the Prairie Preserve would be lovely green hills, but they were mostly brown stubble. Flint Hills are so named because of the flint, shale, and limestone that lie so close to the surface that the soil can't reasonably be tilled. At one time the preserved area was much larger, but it has shrunk considerably - cattle can graze on the land. "Tallgrass" is really tall, four to six feet tall if allowed to grow without interference.

We stopped in the town of Council Grove, a crucial spot on the Oregon and Santa Fe trails, where settlers met with Indians to agree on treaties. Sad to say, the Indians did not fare well. We met an extremely enthusiastic volunteer at an Indian school there and she showered us with local information. We stopped at the oldest continually operating restaurant west of the Mississippi for coffee and a sweet. Later we went to another restaurant in that town for an early supper and were a bit surprised to find the menu "very hip", out there in the wilds of Kansas.

The Spencer Art Museum on the UK campus is advertised as one of the ten best college art museums. I would agree! It has a wide variety of artwork, very old to very modern. There were full explanations about each piece and just enough to see so that we didn't get overwhelmed (in some museums, I have to say to John that I have seen enough and will wait for him at the exit).

After the museum, we strolled on Massachusetts Street, a long street lined with restaurants and shops in the heart of Lawrence. It is a great street on a sunny Sunday afternoon, and would that Durham NH had just a couple of blocks as alluring!

It was good to have some pleasant weather at last in Kansas on Sunday. We were beginning to accuse Kansas in April of being as glum and brown as Texas in February.

Monday we drove our last leg of Kansas to Kansas City. Actually, the part of Kansas City to visit is in Missouri. Maybe it's just cranky to mention this, but at the Missouri info center, we were "swarmed" by an overzealous man - we had worked to decide what we wanted to visit, and he kept piling additional brochures on us and outlining a route we "must" take, parking and then using public buses all over the city. It was just not pleasant, but we stuck to our guns and visited the sites we had chosen. The Hallmark Gallery is almost saccharine, but it is also a very lovely place which evinces fine values. Union Station is a testament to the importance of railroads to the opening of the west, an elegant high-ceilinged building to suit adventurous passengers. The Money Museum was quite interesting. It details the development of the Federal Reserve system, and features Kanas City as a hub for midwestern cooperative development. John refused to buy the little socks for grandchildren - they were covered with dollar bill signs and drawings.

After walking around to see our Kansas City sights, we drove that evening to Columbia, midway across Missouri. I was so relieved to find the terrain so much less harsh than Kansas; I was not clenching my teeth and groaning any more. We went to a campground where the office was closed, tried to find a level spot to park, and gave up and drove to a nearby Walmart. The next day it rained continuously and hard, so we hunkered down. We found another RV spot, hooked up, and took it easy. John did find a spot for breakfast where we were with "locals" and we thoroughly enjoyed that. Then we went to the Columbia public library, which is huge - there are three colleges in that town - and spent a couple of hours there. (John with Value Line, of course, and me with several recent issues of the New York Times, trying to learn more about the Boston bombings.) We also went out to dinner.

Next morning, there was a smattering of snow on the car, but it melted before too long. It surprises me that the late April temperatures have so often reached freezing out here. We had a pleasant drive to St. Louis, although John bemoaned the fact that as we neared the city, the development along the highway looked like MD...NJ...PA...anywhere generic. Our view from this casino RV park is of the Arch across the river, the river which has raw sewage pumping into it and is at a very high stage... We walked around and were impressed (depressed, actually) to see how many people were at the casino. At least there is a separate smoking area - Nevada casinos are so smoky that it is stupid to walk through them.

It is sunny this morning, and we look forward to spending the day touring in St. Louis. We are not quite sure what route we will follow from here, but we feel closer to home.

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Comments

[Carol]

great to get your travel updates
The Broadmoor is amazing isn't it? One of my favorite places in the Springs. Most of my family settled in CS after leaving Nebraska so it is a place I always enjoy too. Clearly "old money" built it and maintains it. Nice to see how others can live. enjoy the rest of your trip through the Midwest...and no more snow! We leave for Maine May 3rd. Hope all is thawed by then! Carol