Fall Odyssey 2006

September 20, 2006--Colby, KS to Columbia, MO (584 mi)

I was up with the sun since I was sleeping in my car last night. I had breakfast at Village Inn at Colby, Kansas and I was on the road by 7:45am. It was a stunningly beautiful morning--made me feel so GOOD to be alive and on God's green earth. I continued to be lucky with the weather for my entire eastward leg of this trip. My neighbors called me about 5 days into my trip and asked if I was okay because they had been seeing serious mid-West tornado reports on the news. I looked into this later on and it turned out that I had been ONE DAY ahead of huge storms to the west of me as I proceeded eastward. There were 41 confirmed tornadoes that touched down--some, in places that I had just passed through the day previous. This did not surprise me--remember: I was expecting crazy shit to happen along the way.

But I wasn't thinking about bad weather at this point--it was PERFECT out! On this second day of my roadtrip I was really quite elated to be on this backroads odyssey. I had made a decision to take as many backroads as seemed enjoyable. I had never been through the heart of America by car before. Kansas was surprisingly pretty. If I had a family and network of friends I could probably live & die quite happily in the quiet repose of somewhere like Logan, Kansas (see photo of endless road below).I got out of my car many, many times to shoot photos along the Hwy 9 scenic route between Colby and Lebanon, Kansas. I even shot photos of crops (see above) because I was fascinated to be in the so-called "bread basket of America" and seeing things growing in HUGE quantities under overwhelming blue skies. I felt stupid that I could not identify ANY of the crops growing. How could I live to be 40 and not be able to identify crops? That makes me sad somehow. But at the time it made me experience gratitude for being fortunate enough to live in a time & place where such bounty is possible. We're all sort of like oblivious goldfish being fed by an unseen hand unaware of just how blessed we are.

I stopped in Lebanon, KS around 10am. This is the geographical center of the contiguous United States. I know this isn't exactly Disneyland, but I was in the neighborhood. Okay, I made a POINT of BEING in the neighborhood. I did mention that I was purposely taking the backroads through America.

I took Hwy 181 south from Lebanon to Cawker City, Kansas to witness firsthand something equally as grand as the center of America: the World's Largest Ball of Twine. My friend Andy & I had joked for years that we would go on the World's Largest Ball of String tour every time we embarked on a roadtrip for more than 3 hours. Well, this time I actually did it for real. I think everyone can appreciate the insanity of driving two days to the middle of nowhere to see such a nonessential spectacle

From Cawker City I drove eastward on Hwy 24 through to Manhattan, Kansas (I visited the OTHER Manhattan 10 days later) stopping only for lunch at a Dairy Queen in Beloit, Kansas along the way. Past Manhattan, KS I took the I-70 eastward to Missouri. I crossed over the Missouri River into Kansas City, MO at 5:45pm and made a stop at the Kansas City Royals Kauffman Stadium for a little walk and to take a few photos. It was another perfect cobalt-skied evening (though my photo below doesn't capture this) and I just enjoyed my little early evening stroll along the lawns surrounding this very impressive structure. I was cursing my camera though--turns out it is completely unequipped to capture the exquisite lighting from sunrises, sunsets and whatever else I was trying to save forever on "film".

After stopping for dinner at a BD's Mongolian BBQ in Independence, MO I drove on eastward to Columbia, Missouri where I stopped for the night at a Super 8 Motel. I crossed my fingers that their fire alarm would remain silent during my stay. It did.