Kansas City is no place for a pedestrian

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On the train to Kansas City we meet a woman and her son returning from Washington DC. They had been invited to the inauguration of President Barack Obama as the son, Rexy Planner had been the president of a youth movement for the Obama campaign in the state of Missouri. They had met Obama during the early stages of his campaign, the boy was only eight or nine years old. The mum showed us photographs and told us the tale of their experience, meeting J-Lo and other celebrates, squeezing through thousands of people to get in and how the met an 86 year old woman who had witnessed lynchings and been active in the civil rights movement and now at eighty six years old had travelled, on her own thousands of miles by train to see her dream become a reality.

We parted company at the station and hailed a cab. The driver did not speak good English and had no clue where our hotel was. After repeating the address several times we spelled it out to him as he typed it into a sat nav, the directions of which he ignored on several occasions during our journey taking us out in a wide loop out and around the city before turning onto the industrial estate where our hotel was situated. It's late at night and there is only one building lit up on at the end of the road. It's driveway is lined with trees wound in fairy lights to welcome guests. 'Which building is it?' the driver asks. I suggest he tries the one that is all lit up and sure enough it turns out to be the hotel. We query his route and he claims that a road had been closed forcing him to take an alternative route. 'I not cheat you, it's right price'. So we give him the benefit of the doubt, pay the fair and lump our bags into reception. Our room is on the eighth floor of a shabby out of town hotel built, we presume for business and conferences. There are clumps of mud along the hall way left by the fishermen who are staying there. It has a swimming pool, gym and laundry. The room has two double beds, a TV that looks like it's been kicked a few times, an old dusty heater on the wall and taps in the bathroom that take us a while to work out. After fiddling for a while I discover that you have to pull the tap towards you and then turn it one way or the other to get hot or cold water. Like Pittsburgh, Kansas City is a place designed for people with cars and once again we find ourselves on the outskirts of town with no way to get in. We ask at reception about buses, they have no idea. It turns out that one pulls up right outside the hotel, perhaps they have never seen it.

We put a few dollars into the vending machine and take some drinks and snacks back to our room. I chose an energy drink by mistake and spend a good few hours lying awake composing letters and telling myself stories that ramble on and repeat themselves. I drive myself half nuts trying to go to sleep against the will of my over stimulated brain that chatters on aimlessly to itself keeping me awake.

In the morning we take a cab back to the train station. It costs seven dollars less than the night before which confirms my suspicions that we did not take the most direct route. I'm not sure if the driver was trying to swindle us or he was just incompetent, either seems as likely. We leave our bags with left luggage for three dollars a bag. Lou has found a couple of museums a little way across town. We try and decipher a bus timetable before setting off on foot against the wind to find them. The sun is out and thinking it was going to be much warmer than Chicago I had not warn my thermal under ware, and left my gloves, coat and hat in my bag, this turns out to have been a mistake as it is colder than a witches tit. We press on. No one else is walking on the streets they all seem to be in nice warm cars. We pass the odd person waiting at a bus stop but people only seem to walk a few feet from the car to their destination in this city. We pass a drive in bank. The cash points are lined up like petrol pumps and people pull up to them and wind down the window to get cash. We walk on, through an arty area with cafe's, a bike shop and a few 'view by appointment' galleries. We consult the map and find ourselves about half way there after twenty five painfully cold minutes walk. We press on hands in pockets, shoulders hunched and heads turned against the wind. We walk under an express way past a couple of poor souls huddled in blankets their few tatty belongings scattered around them. We walk on. Eventually we arrive at the Negro Baseball Leagues Museum. It is a fascinating exhibition that charts the history and evolution of civil rights along side the evolution of the Negro Baseball leagues. Baseball was segregated until the nineteen fifties with separate leagues and teams. Some black players pretended to be Native American or Cuban in order to play in the white leagues. They would talk gibberish in the field pretending it was Spanish in an attempt to disguise that they were African Americans. White players would refuse to play with Blacks and there was a 'gentleman's agreement' not to sign any black players between clubs. Black teams would go on the road and play one off matches against white teams all over the country sometimes twice a day and although they played in the same stadiums they were not allowed to eat in the same restaurants or sleep in the same hotels. I'm not really that into baseball but the exhibition was fascinating all the same. Next door is the American Jazz Museum which starts with a fifteen minute film featuring several great musicians such as Max Roach and Shirley Horn trying to explain 'What is Jazz?'. You then walk into a hall consisting of posters, photos, record covers and instruments. Each stand talks about a different musician or aspect of Jazz music and there are listening posts where you can listen to the music as you read about it. You can remix tracks, play at adding different rhythm styles to music and listen and learn about the construction of pieces. It was very enlightening. I haven't been to many museums dedicated to music but I feel that this one set a high bench mark for them to follow.

After several hours at the museums we wandered back out into the cold failing light and walked back towards town. Lou had found a vegetarian restaurant listed in the Lonely Planet guide back past the train station on the other side of town. We walk double quick time back to the station as it is now even colder than before. We find a cab which takes us the building in the basement of which the restaurant is located. I notice a plaque mentioning something about Jesus and the Apostles on the way in but think little of it. We walk down some steps into what looks like a school hall with some tables set out. There is a huge, child's painting of a man with a halo pined to one wall, a religious gift shop on one side and messages of peace and love framed on the opposite wall. The cafe's patrons are made up of bearded men, modestly dressed women and their, almost immaculate behaved children. We have come to a Christian Organic Vegan Cafe. The atmosphere is pleasantly calm, there is no alcohol on the menu. The food is OK. I eat a refried bean soup for started and a Seitan Stake for main. Seitan is a meat alternative. I'm not sure if Lou keeps on saying Seitan, pronounced Satan for effect or it just keeps cropping up naturally in conversation. Sometimes I wonder if she has a mild for of turrets.

When we leave it has begun to snow. We have no cash and wander around trying to find and ATM and then a bar. Both prove hard to find. We head back to the train station where we find the bar closed for a private function to we sit in the waiting room for three hours until our train arrives at eleven fifty five p.m. and we travel through the night to Dodge City.

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Comments

[James]

Bartlett have you been using that spellchecker again..? "Seitan Stake"!? Im not so sure its working out too well :)

[celia]

frozen fish fingers!
For godsakes boy safetypin your gloves to elastic threaded through your coat sleeves!! love Celia