Headwinds

9 October, 2012

Arvada, Colorado

I saw my first tumbleweed, in thirty years, as we passed Hays, Kansas.  Shortly thereafter, the headwinds became shear and began blowing every vehicle around on the road.  I saw a tandem tractor-trailer, 100 feet ahead of us, go off the roadway and nearly jackknife.  The wind was so severe it knocked a headlamp module loose and I had to make a hasty road repair in 30 mile-per-hour winds.

The temperature continued to drop as the High Plains of Western Kansas rose continually, and my fears of being on forever flatlands were assuaged approaching Colorado. Crossing the border at Kanorado, the land grew open and wild. Desert qualities began to emerge as we entered Spaghetti Western-looking lands. A pervasive chill threatened to last until Spring, as the wind snatched off my hat at every opportunity.

Denver came as a surprise, cresting a rise after Watkins, the outskirts came into view advancing into the frame amid pastures and watering tanks. The mountains beyond provided a terrific backdrop for the sprawling urban intervention, once a gold-rush boom town.

Flatlands

8 October, 2012

Mulvane, Kansas

From the clear light of morning, in Odessa, I could see we had made our way out of the flatlands, and the topography began to rise and fall as we crossed into Kansas.  After a several mile hike around Clinton Lake, just West of Lawrence, we entered an almost surreal stretch of Turnpike, 40 miles without a house, barn or road sign.  I began to wonder if we were not in Kansas anymore.

We made Mulvane in the early evening without incident and I was taken with the seemingly diminished scale of a place well established in my history.

Bernie Cummins, my cousin, took us for a hike, up 111^th Street East, passing the scene of a couple of my favorite accidents. We crossed the bridge where I had set off a string of firecrackers in my shirt pocket, the grove of hedgeapple trees, where there had once been only one, and I had backed a tractor into it, an industrious and naïve youth of 12….

A frost had come through the night, and hit Bernie and Jackie’s Hungarian pepper plants. Bernie and I picked most of the undamaged bounty, with cherry tomatoes and other green peppers, Kaya on rabbit patrol, running the dry arroyos.

  

We watched the Yankees vs. the Orioles, the second game of the division series, an excellent game, and began thinking of the long day trip to Denver tomorrow.

Liftoff

7 October, 2012
Odessa, Missouri 

It didn’t begin to get dark in central Missouri until 8:30, by Virginia time, from which I should have changed the dash clock as we entered the State.

Missouri had been a high-speed vector down Route 70 from St. Louis, where we failed to try the ribs. The average speed of traffic was 80-85 MPH, and when in Rome….the tedium of the highway was relieved only by construction, visible miles of parking-speed jam, so we jetted up to Route 40 for a stretch, until Brazil, and then returned to the automotive slipstream.

It was quite a contrast to Friday, which began with a walk and tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece, Fallingwater, where I had found us, quite by accident, on Thursday evening.  I was leaving the Pennsylvania Turnpike around 6 pm, leaving time to find a campground and set up a tent.  As I paid the toll, I saw a sign for Fallingwater and inquired of the operator how far it was?

As it panned out, it was only 15 miles away, though a half-hour’s drive, extended by weeming and warping through the steep hills and valleys of Western Pennsylvania. By the time I had mapped it out, found it, and determined the Bear Run Campground across the Road was not ready for us, it was 8, and we stayed in a very rustic “Log Cabin and Suites,” back near the turnpike.

I was more careful about the art of navigation, as a lack of concern compounded by some electronic SNAFUs had caused us to take an unnecessary and egregious turn through Carlisle earlier in the afternoon. It was impressive to see the 911 Memorial outside Chambersburg, and exhilarating to finally be on the road, into uncharted territory, after leaving the Smokehouse at High Noon with 233,444 miles on the odometer, running roughly 19 days late.

After the walking tour, Kaya and I luxuriated in the town of Ohiopyle, on the River of the same name, to order a non-franchised meal and hang out in what felt like a college town populated with octogenarians.

From there to here, across Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and most of Missouri, the topography went from intense mountain passes to eternal flatlands with sparse farming settlements sprinkled amid leaves changing in crisp, clear rural air. A high point, among a number of weird things observed (a three-story candle yesterday) was about a hundred acres filled with military tanks, some in green jungle camouflage, some in army green, many of the desert sand finish.

Today, if the weather holds, we will frolic at Clinton State Park, outside of Lawrence Kansas, and then continue to Mulvane.