Tag Archives: kansas

Great Western Road Trip, Day 23

Current Location: Florissant, Missouri

Today’s Song: Lazlo Bane – Superman (Theme from Scrubs)

I need you here with me
Cause love is all we need
Just take a hold of the hand that breaks the fall
Well I know what I’ve been told
Gotta break free to break the mold
But I can’t do this all on my own
I’m no superman

Yeah. I think too much sometimes.

This is the penultimate day of this road trip. I started the day on the outskirts of Kansas City. Through he power of Yelp (which is really served me remarkably well on this trip) I found a wonderful little bakery/restaurant in Overland Park called McClain’s Market. I fueled up with a granola parfait and an Americano (ever since I left Canada I’ve been hooked on Americanos – go figure).

Then it was an uneventful drive across Missouri. It scares me that at this point anything less than six hours constitutes a “short” drive. If you do this long enough, I guess that’s what happens. Along the way I finished my second audiobook of the trip, this one also be T.J. Klune (The first was The Lightning-Struck Heart). This one was Wolfsong, which I have read before. It is an intensely emotional book and had me crying several times as I traced the relationship between Joe and Ox to mine and Dan’s. A tough listen, but so, so worth it.

I met up with Rama and K at Sugarfire Smoke House in St. Charles, Missouri for lunch. It’s a fun, quirky place with great BBQ sauces. After that we went back to their place and…didn’t do much. Rama and I sat around and talked convention stuff and watched some TV. It was lovely, and considering that it was 105 F outside it was a great alternative to venturing out. A big plus was that I got to pet Zoe, their 90-pound Great Dane puppy!

For dinner we went to Ferguson Brewing Company where I enjoyed my last beer flight of the trip, which had some unusually generous pours!

After a stop for frozen custard on the way home (because St. Louis), I quickly crashed for the night and slept quite well, with the exception of being woken up a couple of times by some very loud thunderstorms.

Tomorrow: HOME!

Miles Driven Today: 257 miles

Time Driving Today: 4:05

Total Miles Driven: 6,075 miles

Total Time Driving: 120:12

Great Western Road Trip, Day 22

Current Location: Lenexa, Kansas

Today’s Song: Mark Knopfler – Guide My Sword (from The Princess Bride Soundtrack)

A contemplative piece from one of my favorite soundtracks. I’ve been thinking a lot during this trip, and this matches up to my mood.

It was another early start today – up at 5:15 AM. After packing up, rearranging my luggage, cleaning the car, and checking out, I was able to walk to the coffee shop just across the street right as they opened at 6:30 AM.

Today was going to be a very long leg of driving, and not much to see or do along the way. Dring out of Denver was slow going.

The only saving grace was that the air conditioning in the Mustang was in excellent working order, which is good because today was a day when it was absolutely necessary!

I made very few stops, pushing ahead as quickly as I can. After three weeks of glorious scenery and being excited to see more, I’ve reached the point where I’m ready to get on my way home. Kansas wasn’t as boring as expected (there’s a lot more trees than I thought there would be) but it wasn’t particularly visually stimulating either. Fortunately between my audiobook and NPR I was able to make the time pass pretty quickly.

For dinner, I met up with Orthrus and Adjacent at a restaurant nearby. I first met Orthrus many, many years ago over the net. This was the first time that I met him face to face, and got to meet his husband as well. They’re both great, fun guys and the evening’s conversation was wide-ranging and enjoyable.

Tomorrow, the penultimate day of my road trip: a short 4-hour jaunt across Missouri to St. Louis.

Miles Driven Today: 614 miles

Time Driving Today: 8:52

Total Miles Driven: 5,818 miles

Total Time Driving: 116:07

Note that the totals are revised since I think that the Automatic dongle wasn’t reading correctly while I was in Canada, or anywhere that I was outside of cellular service. A definite limitation of the product. These are the numbers directly from the Mustang’s gauges.