Note: This post is from September 1, 2008.

Today was a full day, so this is a long post. Before leaving the St. Louis area, we stopped at a little stretch of Rt. 66. The fabled road is basically gone, replaced by major highways, but there is a little museum commemorating its history and culture. Back when Rt. 66 was in use, the classic road trip seems to have been a very different experience. It was certainly a lot slower, but probably provided more opportunity to interact with locals outside of rest stops and motels. Back then, the road had a personality, cars had fins, hitchhiking was safe, and roadside attractions were actually on the side of the road. I bought a T-shirt.

Times Beach

A sad and interesting side-portion of the museum was an exhibit about a town called Times Beach, Missouri. This is a town that, due to a couple of incidents, does not exist anymore. It was a quaint yet popular resort along the Meramec River, but the residents were unhappy with their dirt roads because they created a lot of unpleasant dust. To deal with the dust, they hired a man named Russel Bliss to spray the streets with oil. Apparently, this is not as absurd as it sounds because the dust can be quite problematic and when done correctly the oil technique can be effective. The problem was, the man used waste-oil, and not just from local gas stations or refineries, but also from a plant that had been producing agent orange, so the oil was tainted with the poison dioxin. The first hint that something was wrong was at the local horse track (also dirt, also sprayed) when horses started dying. Then illnesses started popping up in the town's children, and an investigation was launched. The residents of Times Beach began to clear out while cleanup took place. In the 80s, however, the last straw for the town came in the form of major floods of the Missouri River. On top of everything that had already happened, homes and belongings were destroyed. The last resident soon left, and the government constructed a big incinerator to burn the toxins and clean what was left of the town. The area is now officially clean and has been turned into parkland, with just a few exhibits in the Rt. 66 museum to remember the old days of Times Beach.

It's history, really!

We next stopped at "Historic Rocheport." (This was before we realized that every town in this part of Missouri claims to be historic and has a highway sign saying "Next stop, historic downtown blah-biddy-blah.") Apparently Rocheport is a major stop on a bicycle trail that used to be the Katy-line railway. It just made me think of an old blues song, called "She Took the Katy, and Left Me a Mule to Ride." I never understood what that song meant until now. The Katy was a train. Now it's a bike trail. I like that this is blues country.

Yes, food again

On to Kansas City, Missouri: I wish it were possible to photograph smells. The smell of the barbecue joint we just left was amazing. It's a place called Arthur Bryant's. I had a half-rack of ribs and fries, and it was one of the best tasting things I have ever eaten. Christine had an open-faced pulled pork sandwich slathered with BBQ sauce. The meat on the ribs was smoky and spice and oh-so-tender! The sauce had a delicious flavor unlike anything I've ever had. Sweet, hot, smoky, tangy, a little bit of everything! So good.

Other than that, Kansas City was unremarkable. We went to Riverfront Park and it seemed nice but it was deserted. Today is Labor Day, so I would have expected to see some people out. Maybe the 90-degree weather kept people indoors. The park is a pretty stretch of grass and paths with benches and plaques describing wildlife and so on, but not a soul was there to enjoy it all.

Across the street from the river, we parked in a little parking area that was still under construction and full of an extremely fine yellow dust that billowed up into big puffs with every step. My shoes and Christine's feet became completely coated in the stuff. We felt some sympathy for the former residents of Times Beach.

We then drove through the city to the "premier nightlife location," Westport. It is basically an intersection with a couple of pubs and one or two restaurants.

The ribs definitely made Kansas City worth the stop, though. The guy in front of us at the counter was a trucker who was bringing home about 10 pounds of ribs and fixin's for his wife back home (in Denver or Chicago, I think. He was planning to drive through the night and get home by about 7AM or so).

Corn, corn, and more corn

Next we crossed into Kansas.

We're seeing a lot of folks moving. U-Hauls, trailers, Penske trucks, SUVs packed to the gills. Maybe these cross-country highways are always like this, but I suspect we're seeing the annual student pilgrimage back to college. Late August to early September is always a time of change in America. Back in Boston, with its piles of Universities, we notice it especially, with a fresh crew of young faces every year. After four years they leave, changed. (As I write, we just drove by a broken-down Penske truck in the middle of Kansas, miles from the nearest exit. Poor guys!)

Kansas is much more beautiful than I expected. It's the Great Plains, but it's not really very flat. It looks like a bed-sheet that has just been furled out in the moment before it settles down on a bed, full of undulations and ripples. You can see the road in front of you snaking in and out of sight as it dips and rises and turns. Maybe that's what people mean when they talk about the "rolling plains" -- they resemble the rolling swells of the open ocean, but greener and on a bigger scale.

Moving past Abilene, the terrain flattens out. It's still scenic, though, with fields of crops intermingled with wild flowers and flocks of birds alighting at the passing traffic. Soon thereafter, coming into Ellsworth County, the rolling hills come creeping back. We watched miles and miles of windmills turning languidly against the sunset, stretching to the horizon and just slightly beyond.

Tonight's resting place is Oakley, Kansas. It's a small town, with nowhere to eat after 10PM except the truck stop, but the residents seem friendly. Oakley's recent claim to fame is it corresponds pretty closely to the location of the fictional town of Jericho, setting of the TV series of the same name. I guess there was a Jericho convention there not so long ago. It certainly does seem like a place where the rest of the world could blow up and you wouldn't notice, or really care. Good night, Road.