Not in Kansas Anymore...

Chasing a full moon across snow spotted plains beneath bruised clouds. Easy to imagine hearing tornado sirens and watching lightning flash across a flat world, tornadoes ripping through empty fields. Lights several hundred feet up on a microwave, cell antennae, water tower or grain silo looming over a few square acre town like Vona, Bethune, Levant, Quinter and Voda. Only Ford, Chevy and Dodge trucks covered in snowy mud streaks and Carrhearted farmers inside.

Endless semis ply the 70, most fearless in ice and blowing snow. Tiny Oil derricks swing in the flat expanse of fields, sparsely populating the plane like the scrappy leafless trees. Watching irrigation ditches, barbed wire fences, random round hay bales, tumble down barns and weeds poke up through the several inch deep blanket of snow. Several hundred feet of naked trees to possibly mark a property line or road breaks up the gentle maddening roll that makes perceivable distance all but impossible. Truck stops, speed trap troopers parked three abreast chatting over sunrise. Signs of highways commentating local fallen veterans.

At the Kansans border we stop at The ConocoPhillips station in Burlington The grout above the urinal someone had scrawled "Kill Mexicans." Inside the spacious travel stop a duck hunting video game and porno mags were main attractions. I found a few interesting travel folders attempting to sing the praises of I70 towns in Kansas. The 620-foot deep salt mine tours were shut for winter. Damn.

We stayed the night in The town of Hays. It sprouted on the promise of the coming railway line and in the 1869 to 72 it boasted of 33 homicides. We could still tour the Presbyterian church that helped “tame the town”. As that happened, most of the colorful outlaw residents moved to Dodge City where it was still exciting for a few more years. But Kansas makes no bones about commemorating the violent past. The "original" Boot Hill is here as were Buffalo Bill, James Hickock, Rattlesnake Pete Lanahan. The historic fort tasked to keep law and order opened at 9 so we had to miss it.

Maureen is having a windshield epic as they smeared and the washer fluid is frozen. Cars behind following too closely and the one ahead braking in the icy patches and forcing all three to get cozy. The travel gods are smiling though as it looks as if we are catching the edge of Rocky again just shy of Salina, the town that in 10th grade Maureen's mom road tripped to with her cousin.

Toll plaza woman asked if Smokey was sedated. She said a trucker comes through that has a cat that rides his dashboard and has made that his perch for the last nine years. Maureen and i thought-That can't be legal. Just jumped another time zone. Kansas City still digging itself out. Naked black trees clothed in blown snow. Counted at least a dozen cars from Denver to here in ditches just off the icy highway half buried in snow, owners walked off to wait for thaw. KC is claimed by Missouri though nearly half of it sits in Kansas. Strange.

I thought I had broken something when I leaned in to squeegee the windows as something fell and thumped at my feet. Just a huge chunk of ice from the wheel well. A snowman with squeegees for arms at the next gas stop. Passing the agriculture Hall of Fame... Freight trains, living fence row of Canada geese. Wind picking up, found the edge if the storm again in Kansas City. Record snowfall here yesterday of 8.4 inches. Beat the 1890 record by 6 inches. Just light snow now and the weather advisory will expire at noon...

Smokey is preferring to chill in the litter box today and when coaxed out drags the white crumbs across the car only to return a few minutes later and repeat the process. My camera bag I have rested in the center between the front seats and it has become a favorite Smokey perch allowing him to be raised up into the welcome morning sunlight that will only last an hour as we drive due east for several hundred more miles.

Blowing snow across the high way, giant green energy windmills spin. Cows congregate in mud holes punched through the snow. Random old farming machines. An abandoned farmstead with barns and sheds crumbling disappearing into the landscape. Icy patches, soft diffuse sunlight on sensuously wind blown skin of snow in the gentle rolling shady folds in the terrain, more hilly now. Blowing snow on the black highway swirls ominously like cauldron smoke...

Outside Blackwater Missouri: pro-life billboard of smiling baby- "your vote is their voice." Looks the same as Kansas but more scrappy trees, less farmland. Truck drivers seem to be more challenges. Semi parked on its side, one jackknifed in the median. Light snow falling but 32 degrees. Only 5 hours from Kansas City to Saint Louis. Distances seem to shrink out here. Almost no color anywhere. White snow, grey sky, black concrete and trees. vehicles and road signs muted by pallid sallow insipid anemic light, the Hazed blur through streaked windshield of the icy muddy muck that coats everything. More limestone scarps and twisty creeks than in KS.

Passed Ozarkland and bummed we didn't stop. Fireworks for sale everywhere. Buzzkill when I mentioned grabbing some. Passing Mexico and Moberly, Wellsville. Seen a handful of import cars finally. Maureen pointed out a billboard advertising "Hot and tasty butts". Two cartoon pigs for a BBQ place. Another one for an all you can eat $3.99 buffet.

Snow, grey skies, light wind and no imports to be seen in Germantown. We walked in the blowing wet snow to Flatland Rocks to meet up with the Maureen’s high school girlfriends form the wild days. Many Bud Lights and 3$ lemon shakers. Open mic night so local bands played renditions of Green Day and Foo Fighters. The singer with the broken wrist also had a very compromised voice. Small Midwestern town hotspot with the urinal window facing the bar at chest level, tinted to see out but not in. Cookie sat with us. He owns a bar in the next town over. Soft spoken but a towering seven and a half feet tall.

Despite the snow, Clinton County is quite warm - especially spending time with Maureen’s family. We scurry about organizing, loading, calling, canceling - tying up whatever loose ends we can before departure. Enjoy strolls on the Carlyle dam and through the cemetery, savor good home-cooked meals and hours of Euchre - a game my challenged brain may sadly never fully grasp having not grown up with it. A welcome respite before blasting off into the unknown with 200 pounds of gear, self supported for two months and now just 24 hours away…

Tom Eversgerd uses his counterweight balance scale that for decades accurately measured sides of beef.  Flying a few weeks ago we had 31 pounds of over-packing that needed redistribution into carry on luggage...

Lynn Eversgerd confirms the accuracy of the antique scale...