Two More Roads

Continuing from my last post, here are the other two drives between Washington, D.C. and Lincoln, NE that stood out:

The third notable drive, and my favorite of the bunch, was the drive from Little Rock through the Ozarks in northwest Arkansas.

Near the beginning of this drive, before I reached the Ozark Mountains, I stopped at Hendrix College, where a good friend of mine used to teach.  I think it's been a while since he's been there, so I don't know if the campus looks like it did in his time, but it was really pretty.  It's a small school in a small town, but was a nice place to stroll around for a while before setting off on my drive for the day.

The Ozarks are not particularly large mountains, but are a very pretty area.  The roads are twisty and turny, with some ups and downs, but until the drive through the Smokey Mountains, are fun to drive, not teeth-clenchingly  stressful.  It felt kind of like someone grabbed U.S. 129 at each end stretched it out just a bit.

If you read my post on Little Rock, you'll know that Arkansas has long been mocked as the home of drunken hillbillies (well, maybe you already knew this).  A lot of this stereotype comes from early depictions of the Ozarks and the people who lived there.  They were poor.  From what I saw, the area is not so poor any more, but I did see a share of trailers and really beaten-up homes along the way.

I stopped for lunch at the Burger Barn, which apparently has been around for a long time and is a local famous place.  It's just a roadside drive-in where you order at the counter then eat in your car or under a tent.  And it was good.  I'm glad I stopped!  While there, I got to talking with a couple from California who'd just moved to the area because the lady's mom had retired there.  They loved it.  They thought it was pretty and easy.

If you're ever in northwest Arkansas, stop at the Burger Barn!  The chef is gruff, but the burgers are good.

Finally, my last notable drive was between Kansas City, Missouri and Lincoln, Nebraska.  Not because the drive was particularly scenic (it was not) or full of neat things (it was not).  But because a huge swath of Interstate 29 and many surrounding roads were washed out by floods from the Missouri River.  Apparently, the states upstream of the Nebraska/Iowa area received significantly more snowfall than usual and, depending on who you listen to, the Army Corp of Engineers may or may not have managed the dams properly to prevent or reduce flooding down river.  (I'm inclined to think that when you have a massive record snowfall, there's going to be a flood later, no matter how well it's managed.)

Anyway, for me the flooding meant about a 90 minute detour, which actually allowed me to see more of country and small towns around the Missouri/Iowa/Nebraska intersection.  But for the people who live there, it meant at best a massive inconvenience every day or at worst, the loss of their homes or farms or businesses.  Ironically, that whole swath of North America also suffered it worst draught and longest heatwave since the 1930s.  Many parts of the area got more than 30 days of over 100 degree heat this summer, and no rain.  So the area managed to get hit with draught and flooding.  Man.

The area looked like this for miles around.

Kansas City, Missouri

A few of my friends from the CFTC have lived in or spent a lot of time in Kansas City and they really like it, so at their urging, I went slightly out of my way to see it.  I stayed two nights, which gave me a full day in town.

The thing I liked best about KC was its architecture.  I didn't take a formal tour or anything, just wandered around downtown.  But even just doing that I found some great stuff:

Some government buildings

The U.S. Courthouse

The public library

Kansas City, MO prides itself on having more fountains than any city in North American (and maybe only Rome(?) exceeds it world-wide).  I only saw a handful, so I'll have to assume the rest were where I didn't wander.

I was told that KC makes great BBQ, so I stopped at a BBQ place for lunch, at a farmer's market called the River Market.  It's a lot like the West Side Market in Cleveland, only it smelled like cow pies.  Not sure why, since it's right in the middle of the city and I didn't see any live cattle around.  /shrug.  The BBQ was good despite the suspicious odor.

The thing that made the biggest impression on me was actually a sad thing, though.  While nearing the end of my walk around town, I wandered back past the public library and towards my car.  Just as I reached the corner where the library is, a bird dropped straight down out of the sky next to me!  Straight down!  (After I told a friend about that a few days later, he suggested maybe the bird flew into a window, which was possible given its location and the design of the building.)  The bird kind of rolled back and forth on its torso for a minute then managed to get up on is feet.  He wasn't obviously injured (I mean, no blood, no crooked wings), but there was definitely something wrong with him.  He just stood there, beak open, and not moving except for blinking his eyes.  It was scary and sad all at once.  :(  He was sort of near a door and people kept walking past but he didn't fly off or walk away.  I wanted to help but didn't know how or if even anyone could help.  I found a couple guys who do maintenance for the business district and they came over to look at the bird, and started calling around to see if anyone could come help.  I knew my continued presence wouldn't do anything to help the bird, so eventually I took off.  I don't know if the bird recovered, or was put out of its misery, or if it just lingered around for a while then died.  :(  But it made me really sad.

/hug

I'm sure my friends who told me to go to KC feel bad that my biggest impression of the city was an injured bird.  That's not all the impression I got.  It was pretty, clean, and the people were friendly.