(Part Two A.K.A. Missouri Madness and Kansas Craziness)
It was early Thursday morning, and it felt like we were finally on our way. Thanks to a generous donation of a McDonald’s gift card for our travels breakfast was paid for. I couldn’t even remember the last time I even ate at a McDonald’s! The next thing on our agenda was to get the heck out of Dodge … I mean Indy and get some gas. No not the, I just ate McDonald’s, kind either.
Ah rush hour in a big city! There’s nothing quite like the display of our basest emotions all laid bare for the world to see. People all driving like maniacs for the sole intent on going to … work, does anyone else see something wrong with that picture? Tim called over the radio because he spotted a place to fuel up. He went to the big old burly trucker side and I went to the side where people in less impressive vehicles went. I scan my card to begin fueling when suddenly this pops up on the screen: “Please enter Zip Code”. Ok sure I’ll play along, I punched in my Cincinnati Zip Code and hit enter. WHAT? Flagrant Zip Code error! Go see attendant inside immediately! I stood there dumbfounded for a moment and then realized, oh yeah, we already changed our address with the bank. The dumb machine wants a Denver Zip Code, and rather conveniently I had forgotten what my new Zip Code is.
I march though the store looking for Tim just to see him slip out the back. I chased him down and asked him if he was all done fueling up. He told me no because he had to see the attendant inside, something about the zip code. I was glad to see that I wasn’t the only person who fell for that trick. Tim gave me our new zip code and I was back off to feed the beast. Ha, ha, ha, Only 40 bucks later and I was done. As soon as Tim stopped peeing we could get back on the road!
The radio in the minivan is kind of screwy the display is all messed up so you can’t see the station your on. Oh it has a CD player, but someone… SOMEONE packed the CDs and they were nowhere to be found. So here I am stuck listening to the flotsam and jetsam of middle of nowhere music. Tim on the other hand was listening to our Zune. So he had our entire music library at his disposal, while I spent my time singing adlibbed songs to our dog Roxanne. I’m sure she appreciated it. Next stop Illinois and probably their Welcome Center.
It actually wasn’t much longer until we got to Missouri. We might have gotten there a little faster but we kept stopping at Rest Areas. Mostly for Tim, and sometimes for Roxanne, she’s prone to car sickness so the fresh air does her good. There it was the mighty Mississippi River… boy did it look fat. All those flood waters I suppose. Oh and look a Welcome Center! Can’t go to a state without going to their Welcome Center! This place also doubled as a lunch spot, it had a pretty nice picnic area. After a quick bite and the grabbing of travel brochures we were ready to get to Kansas.
So we were off, but not for long within an hour we hit another Rest Area. The same pattern seemed to repeat itself several more times. As we approached Kansas I came to the realization that those stops were in fact the only means of entertainment for the entire state of Missouri. Luckily for me Tim didn’t like listening to the Zune so I got and it made my right ear very happy (yes just my right ear driving around with ear buds in both ears is right out!).
Kansas City, Missouri was the only thing keeping us from yet another state. As I said earlier the plan was to go to the Kansas Welcome Center and pick up a lodging brochure so we can grab a place to stay that night. First however was the seemingly unnecessarily complicated highway system that is, Kansas City. Following someone who is driving a large truck with a trailer during rush hour traffic is hard! Surprisingly we made it to Kansas City, Kansas without incident.
Now it was time to get to that Welcome Center! We drove for quite awhile with no apparent sign of one. Pretty soon the highway we were on was to become a toll road. Perhaps the Welcome center was going to be on the toll road… that makes some kind of sense. Driving on the toll road for awhile and I saw nothing. All I saw was one of those pull off areas with a convenience store. I paged Tim and we decided to pull off there, surely there had to be something there we could use to look up a hotel. Nothing! Ok I thought to myself no need to panic, Topeka isn’t far. We can get dinner and find information out there. Horary for John and his plan!
Ah Topeka the bustling Capital of the fine state of Kansas! Hardly! The place seemed like a ghost town. There were almost no cars on the road and there didn’t seem to be any places to eat. It wasn’t until we were out of town that we found a spot with places to eat. We decided on Ruby Tuesdays and I noticed a Barnes & Noble in the same parking lots. The bookstore will have a travel section that will be able to help us out. Ah, my plan is working perfectly. Perhaps not, during dinner dangerous, even violent storm clouds gathered. As we were leaving the restaurant the heavens opened to a downpour of rain. We ran to our car and huddled there for quite awhile. Roxanne hates thunderstorms and this one was very active. Several bolts of lightning hit much closer than I would have cared for.
Before too long the rain let up and we ventured into Barnes & Noble. After much wandering the store looking for the travel section, we finally broke down and asked an associate where the travel section was. Right by the front door! We perused the books for several minutes and I found one… wrapped in plastic. Thwarted, my brilliant plan came to naught! It worked so well in Indiana too! What were we going to do now? Not only was it dark, but the storm wasn’t looking any friendlier.
It was early Thursday morning, and it felt like we were finally on our way. Thanks to a generous donation of a McDonald’s gift card for our travels breakfast was paid for. I couldn’t even remember the last time I even ate at a McDonald’s! The next thing on our agenda was to get the heck out of Dodge … I mean Indy and get some gas. No not the, I just ate McDonald’s, kind either.
Ah rush hour in a big city! There’s nothing quite like the display of our basest emotions all laid bare for the world to see. People all driving like maniacs for the sole intent on going to … work, does anyone else see something wrong with that picture? Tim called over the radio because he spotted a place to fuel up. He went to the big old burly trucker side and I went to the side where people in less impressive vehicles went. I scan my card to begin fueling when suddenly this pops up on the screen: “Please enter Zip Code”. Ok sure I’ll play along, I punched in my Cincinnati Zip Code and hit enter. WHAT? Flagrant Zip Code error! Go see attendant inside immediately! I stood there dumbfounded for a moment and then realized, oh yeah, we already changed our address with the bank. The dumb machine wants a Denver Zip Code, and rather conveniently I had forgotten what my new Zip Code is.
I march though the store looking for Tim just to see him slip out the back. I chased him down and asked him if he was all done fueling up. He told me no because he had to see the attendant inside, something about the zip code. I was glad to see that I wasn’t the only person who fell for that trick. Tim gave me our new zip code and I was back off to feed the beast. Ha, ha, ha, Only 40 bucks later and I was done. As soon as Tim stopped peeing we could get back on the road!
The radio in the minivan is kind of screwy the display is all messed up so you can’t see the station your on. Oh it has a CD player, but someone… SOMEONE packed the CDs and they were nowhere to be found. So here I am stuck listening to the flotsam and jetsam of middle of nowhere music. Tim on the other hand was listening to our Zune. So he had our entire music library at his disposal, while I spent my time singing adlibbed songs to our dog Roxanne. I’m sure she appreciated it. Next stop Illinois and probably their Welcome Center.
It actually wasn’t much longer until we got to Missouri. We might have gotten there a little faster but we kept stopping at Rest Areas. Mostly for Tim, and sometimes for Roxanne, she’s prone to car sickness so the fresh air does her good. There it was the mighty Mississippi River… boy did it look fat. All those flood waters I suppose. Oh and look a Welcome Center! Can’t go to a state without going to their Welcome Center! This place also doubled as a lunch spot, it had a pretty nice picnic area. After a quick bite and the grabbing of travel brochures we were ready to get to Kansas.
So we were off, but not for long within an hour we hit another Rest Area. The same pattern seemed to repeat itself several more times. As we approached Kansas I came to the realization that those stops were in fact the only means of entertainment for the entire state of Missouri. Luckily for me Tim didn’t like listening to the Zune so I got and it made my right ear very happy (yes just my right ear driving around with ear buds in both ears is right out!).
Kansas City, Missouri was the only thing keeping us from yet another state. As I said earlier the plan was to go to the Kansas Welcome Center and pick up a lodging brochure so we can grab a place to stay that night. First however was the seemingly unnecessarily complicated highway system that is, Kansas City. Following someone who is driving a large truck with a trailer during rush hour traffic is hard! Surprisingly we made it to Kansas City, Kansas without incident.
Now it was time to get to that Welcome Center! We drove for quite awhile with no apparent sign of one. Pretty soon the highway we were on was to become a toll road. Perhaps the Welcome center was going to be on the toll road… that makes some kind of sense. Driving on the toll road for awhile and I saw nothing. All I saw was one of those pull off areas with a convenience store. I paged Tim and we decided to pull off there, surely there had to be something there we could use to look up a hotel. Nothing! Ok I thought to myself no need to panic, Topeka isn’t far. We can get dinner and find information out there. Horary for John and his plan!
Ah Topeka the bustling Capital of the fine state of Kansas! Hardly! The place seemed like a ghost town. There were almost no cars on the road and there didn’t seem to be any places to eat. It wasn’t until we were out of town that we found a spot with places to eat. We decided on Ruby Tuesdays and I noticed a Barnes & Noble in the same parking lots. The bookstore will have a travel section that will be able to help us out. Ah, my plan is working perfectly. Perhaps not, during dinner dangerous, even violent storm clouds gathered. As we were leaving the restaurant the heavens opened to a downpour of rain. We ran to our car and huddled there for quite awhile. Roxanne hates thunderstorms and this one was very active. Several bolts of lightning hit much closer than I would have cared for.
Before too long the rain let up and we ventured into Barnes & Noble. After much wandering the store looking for the travel section, we finally broke down and asked an associate where the travel section was. Right by the front door! We perused the books for several minutes and I found one… wrapped in plastic. Thwarted, my brilliant plan came to naught! It worked so well in Indiana too! What were we going to do now? Not only was it dark, but the storm wasn’t looking any friendlier.
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