Whoa! Sh*t!

The Big Yellow Truck pulled away from the Embassy Suites in Kansas City at a crawl. Apparently everything is up to date in Kansas City except the street signs. Similar to Tokyo, where you are expected to know where you are and if you don't you don't belong there, KC decided to eliminate street signs in select areas. The civil engineers also decided to take I-70 W and run it under the city where you can see it but cannot get on it. The Winner earned her FREE vacation by guiding The Big Yellow Truck up obscure side streets until we could find ...or perhaps create our own...highway entrance. The morning was only a few hours old and already it was packed with adventure.

As Kansas City fell behind us we were reminded over and over again by small ubiquitous billboards that Beef is what's for dinner. Every two or three miles I would be told "Beef...it's what's for dinner." I thought this particularly cruel when 1) I had yet to have breakfast and 2) cute cows often mingled around said billboards. The scorching heat made me wonder if those cute cows weren't already medium rare. They stood stock still (no pun intended) under the intense sun and I swear I could smell them sizzling. It's not yet noon, but I want fries with that!

Once again it felt as though no one was driving west but us. Traffic was very light and this was a good thing. From the south blew a sustained wind at 25 miles per hour with gusts up into the 30's. It hit The Big Yellow Truck broadside and tried to tear the stearing wheel out of my clenched hands. The Big Yellow Truck and I battled the wind for hours as the Kansas prarie rolled by. I became one big clenched muscle. The Winner did her best to encourage me. "Whoa!" she would exclaim when we teetered and tottered between lanes. "Sh*t!" I would think, "This is WORK!"

I looked for a reason to get off the highway and I found one. Historic Abilene. It happens to be Election Day in Abilene and the docent at the visitor's center was running for office. This delightful older gentleman informed us that Abilene is the boyhood home of Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was built by wealthy cattle barons who, if you asked, would tell you "Beef, it's what's for dinner." It also is where the Greyhound Hall of Fame is located.

One cannot criss cross the country and not stop to pet the greyhounds. This is precisely what we did. Admission was FREE, just like the Winner's vacation, so we went inside and smooched the pooches. We also sat and watched the 12 minute video that outlined the history of dog racing. It was dark in the theatre and cool and I could feel my body trying to fall into a blissful nap. Oh, to be able to curl up next to one of those adorable doggies and be a couch potato for awhile! But no. The open road called. We were back on the road again passing mile after mile of wheat.

Dust devils swirled in the heat as The Big Yellow Truck climbed up a constant slight grade. Always up. Never down. This is how you get to the Mile High City. One small bit of elevation at a time. As we ascended into what is a high desert plain, the Winner read a few chapters from Annie Freedman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral. She also read the tourist information we picked up in Abilene. Here are a few of the things we did NOT stop to see:
The world's largest prarie dog. It's 8,000 lbs, but he's working on it.
The world's biggest ball of twine.
The Cathedral of The Plains (although we did wave at it and I said half a "Hail Mary" I would have said the other half but the wind tried to tip us over and my thoughts went from Mary to "Jesus Christ!")
The Barbed Wire and Post Rock Museum
The Oz Museum
The largest reproduction of Van Gogh's sunflowers
and something that was only identified as "Point of interest." We missed that.

The sun set as we approached Denver and to my left lightening slashed the sky. Things would have been okay if the lightening had stayed in the distance to my left. But not today. Today the elements toyed with me and The Big Yellow Truck. Soon whole bolts of lightening were being hurled directly in front of me.
"Whoa!"
"Sh*t!"
You assign those comments to the appropriate person.

It was already dark but I could see the mountains silhouetted in the distance as the giant pot hole swallowed the front end of The Big Yellow Truck.
"Whoa!"
"Sh*t!"
Well...you get the idea. That sums up the conversations from the cab today.

Tomorrow we cross the continental divide and end up in Salt Lake City. I'll catch up with you from there.
Slainte