Today I'm posting from Merriam, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City! I'm staying with my friend Jacob from the Utena forum, who's already shown me a good time in the form of a rose garden and lively conversation and will show me a good breakfast strata in the morning. I'll post all about KC when I've seen more of it. Today I post about the in-between space and time.
I closed my stay in Paducah by visiting the riverfront. I owed this city, which grew up around the Tennessee River, at least that much, and this is the part of the Mississippi my trip takes me across. It was... cool, if not exactly visually stunning. Actually, I found the insect life more interesting. The pier was overrun with bugs I've never seen before; they looked like large earwigs flying around on damselfly wings. I asked a passerby about them (he was on a road trip himself, from Texas to Pennsylvania) and he says the locals call them sand flies. Wikipedia's idea of a sandfly looks nothing like these bugs, unfortunately, so I can't tell you what they were.
As I drove across southern Illinois en route to Missouri, I pulled off the interstate to check out a winery advertised on the roadside. I couldn't find the winery, or indeed any other human beings at all. Instead I found a trail called Tunnel Hill -- a cliff-bordered nature walk, miniature creeks flowing on each side from recent rains, unkept and gorgeous in the heavy morning fog. After a quarter of a mile, the trail entered a tunnel which was itself probably about a quarter of a mile long. Its interior was completely dark except for the points of light at each end. Walking through it bordered on a religious experience, each step an act of faith: will this step be the one that lands on a rattlesnake or in a bottomless pit? I was afraid, but I pushed forward and exited the tunnel at the other end, very proud of myself. Sadly, I soon had to turn around again because it had started to rain.
And what a rain. It was the longest, hardest sustained deluge I have ever driven through. Lightning flared down in all directions and the winds buffeted brave Blackbird as she strove across southern Illinois. With patience we continued our mission in spite of the blinding rain. In the end we were rewarded as we pulled into sunny lands whose gas stations have quarter-operated cologne dispensers in the restrooms. (I got a teaklike fragrance that's supposed to be a knockoff of something called Aramis.)
In St. Louis I had to use a parking garage by myself for the first time. My city friends and most of my suburban friends are cracking up right now, but it's true! I had to find a parking garage and keep track of where it was all by myself, even as I ate at Einstein Bros. Bagels and toured Forest Park afterward. I didn't get to see much of Forest Park, a very large place where the World's Fair was once hosted; what I saw was verdant and pretty but not memorable. The seemingly endless straight drive across Missouri along I-70 afterwards was more memorable, if only because I had finally joined the artery that will carry me most of the way to the West Coast.
When I finally arrived in Kansas City, I checked out the Mormons' Independence Temple (the future site of the Second Coming of Christ according to their church), which has an architecturally gorgeous spire that I took a good picture of. This aesthetic experience, however, was far overshadowed by the artistry that was Korma Sutra, an Indian restaurant in Highland Park that Jacob recommended to me. The A/C was busted and they hardly spoke English, but the food was by far the best Indian food I've ever eaten, and probably the best food of any kind I've had since Balthazar in New York City last year. I ordered lamb marsala and chai; instead I got lamb marsala made from Aries' own daughter, chai spiced with clove and cinnamon and ginger, and many foods I didn't ask for, such as garlic naan, a toothpick of creme bruleeish ice cream, some kind of pita that I very much liked with the spicy dipping sauce, something Jacob tells me was called "gulab jamun" that consisted of caramelized who-knows-what whose sweetness concentration was so high that my mouth nearly melted, and some kind of milk/melon concoction that Jacob can't identify from my inadequate description of it. The whole culinary masterpiece was topped off with an actual hand-bath administered with warm water poured from a pitcher by my waitress while I squeezed a piece of lime between my fingers. Six stars out of five, if you want my Zagat rating.
And that was today, pretty much! Now to find out what tomorrow is like!
My room in Paducah, the first hotel room of the journey. Kazuko reclines on the bed at right. This seems like a really long time ago. I don't have any good pictures of the city.
Tunnel Hill in south Illinois. Longer and mistier than it looks. I also have a picture taken from inside the tunnel; all you can see is mist and some light at the other end.
Independence Temple's spire. The temple is the site of Jesus's Second Coming according to the Mormons. They may not believe in evolution, but I guess they believe in architecture. Magnificent.
A rose from the garden across from Jacob's flat in Kansas City. Jacob taught me how to use my camera's close-focus feature. It's the button that looks like a flower, appropriately enough.
A very relaxed raccoon at the zoo in Oakley, Kansas. He probably wanted to be asleep, but tourists like me kept interrupting him.
This prairie dog, on the other hand, was bright and alert, as were his hundreds of cousins swarming the zoo!
Wiley's mother tends her lake garden in Aurora, minutes after being terrified by a snake. The native snakes are apparently eating her fish. It's a dilemma.
From Panorama Point on the Denver side.
From Colorado Route 9 in the midst of the Continental Divide.
From Grand Junction on the west side, where the mountains have given way to mesas and the West proper has begun.
