Junkrassic Find

Wednesday 10/31/12

Garden City is in western Kansas so it wasn’t too long before we came to Lamar CO and our 6th Madonna. The “Big Timbers” mentioned in the inscription is for the large groves of cottonwoods growing along the Arkansas River here – a welcome sight after the hot dusty trail from Council Grove.

Madonna of the Trail – Lamar CO

 

Another find in Lamar is the petrified wood (former) gas station. According to Roadside America, it’s now an office, but I think that info’s obsolete. It doesn’t looked used to me. I do hope the building doesn’t get torn down – it’s very representative of a certain mind set in our exuberant it’s-mine-by-divine-right past.

Petrified wood gas station

“Built by W. G. Brown 1933”

Our next planned stop was in nearby La Junta CO. When looking at the Roadside America offerings, who could resist a name like “Junkrassic Park”? “Since 1990, retired farmer Johnnie Allen has been welding huge sculptures made from cast off farm implement metal.” – roadsideamerica.com. Our GPS took us in a fairly round about way (we had it set to avoid dirt roads and I guess it didn’t know they were paved) and there it was. It’s quite amazing to wander around and figure out the puns.

After a lunch stop in La Junta, we headed south to Albuquerque and our last Madonna of the day. Unfortunately the park was undergoing some significant renovations and this was all we could get.

Madonna of the Trail – Albuquerque NM

We didn’t want to stop in Albuquerque for the night so pushed on to Grants NM. We didn’t figure on how bad the rush hour traffic was going to be, however, and didn’t pull into the hotel until ~8pm local time. Maybe ~7ish body time? A bit later than I normally like to eat supper, but I did want some real food. So we took a suggestion from the list the hotel supplied and went up I-40 one exit to Milan and the Wow Diner. All I can say is Wow!. It was truly excellent food.

613 mi, 12:25 hrs total, 9:27 hrs moving

[written 12/18/13]

A long day but finally out of Sandy

Tuesday 10/30/12

It was a bright but very windy and chilly morning. I had scouted out a few Roadside America sights to add to our Madonna goals and one of them was here in Vandalia – the Kaskaskia Dragon. It’s rigged up with a propane tank and upon insertion of a token will breathe fire. Tokens are available at the liquor store across the street. It was too windy for us so we didn’t even check if the store was open yet. Oh, the dragon was built in 1995 and named after the hardware store the builder owned.

Kaskaskia Dragon

Then it was on to our third Madonna. She marks the western terminus of the National Road.

Vandalia IL Madonna of the Trail

The next Madonna was in Lexington KS, a bit east of Kansas City. On our way there, we stopped at a rest area just west of the Mississippi and realized that we had at last escaped Sandy. The wind was just a breeze and it was warm enough to take the jackets off. Ahhhh.

Lexington is now a small town off the expressway but it wasn’t always that way. Prior to the Civil War it was the largest city in western Missouri and you can see the prosperity in some of the buildings. It would have been nice to have spent a little more time there looking around, but we had a long day planned and had to get moving.

Lexington MO Madonna of the Trail

 

Also at the Lexington site:

Another reminder that we live in a glass house

Ken wanted to stop and see the I-70 Speedway. He had remembered it as somewhere near Odessa, which was just south of Lexington. Smartphone to the rescue, I found that it was close to where we would be getting back onto I-70. So off we went. The track appeared to be defunct, but we got a “we were there” picture.

I-70 Speedway sign in Odessa MO

We negotiated Kansas City and turned southwest at Topeka. Our next destination was Council Grove KS. I had been to Council Grove in April 2004 while waiting for my trailer to be repaired in Junction City. I had taken a day trip to the Tall Grass Prairie Reserve and had visited the Kaw Mission in Council Grove on my way back. I remember driving over to the reservoir NE of town so I must have passed the Madonna then, but I don’t remember noticing her.

Council Grove KS Madonna of the Trail

Nearby the Madonna was a strange looking object so we walked over to see what it was. It’s the remnants of the “Post Office Oak” and its protective canopy.

“From 1825 to 1847 a cache at the foot of this tree served as a post office
for incoming and outgoing wagon trains”

Supper was in McPherson at Bruno’s Wood Fired Pizza, an accidental but excellent choice. We pushed on to Garden City where we stopped for the night at ~10pm local time. I don’t know what body time we were on at that point. We would have stopped earlier, but, off the expressway, this part of Kansas didn’t offer much.

739 mi, 13:22 hrs total, 11:27 hrs moving

[written 12/16/13]

Racing Hurricane Sandy

Sunday 10/27/12

Guy’s estate taken care of and family visits made, we left Springfield this morning and headed north toward Lansing MI. On the way up we stopped at my younger brother’s in Parma MI. Ken watched NASCAR with my SIL and I went out to the pole barn with my brother and we yakked up a storm.

After the race, we headed into Jackson for some supper. Unfortunately we sorta forgot it was Sunday. Apparently all the nicer restaurants in Jackson are closed Sundays. Shades of our 4th of July visit. So we ended up at the Hunt Club, a bar/restaurant with solid mid-western food. Decent, but we wanted to treat them to something fancier. Oh well.

My original idea was to stay in Lansing for two or three days giving me leisurely time to sort through my belongings still there and decide what to take back in this load. Hurricane Sandy changed our minds, however. The outskirts were reaching all the way to the Midwest plus a cold weather bubble was dropping down out of Canada. Snow was predicted for tomorrow evening and we wanted nothing to do with it. So I quickly went through the house, grabbed some of the more obvious stuff without giving too much thought to it, and piled it in the living room.

I also did a couple of loads of laundry. Might as well, the machines are just setting there.

Monday 10/29/12

The morning dawned fair but breezy. We showered, breakfasted, I gathered some more stuff, and we packed the car. My sister drove in from Grand Rapids early and we had lunch together. I was glad that I wasn’t going to miss her. Older brother would have to wait until next year; he lives too far away for a quickie visit.

After lunch she headed off to work and we headed toward Vandalia IL – home to another Madonna statue. We had two roughly equidistant route possibilities – one through Gary IN and the other through Indianapolis. Hating that mess around Gary/Chicago, we opted for Indianapolis. That turned out to be a mistake, however, as we hit Indianapolis at evening rush hour. In a very windy and cold rain. Plus there was construction on I-70 southwest of Indianapolis. Did I say the traffic was heavy? Anyway, we got to our hotel after dark. We’ll the Madonna tomorrow morning on our way out.

442 mi, 8:31 hrs total, 6:44 hrs moving

[written 12/14/13]

Down Memory Lane

Friday 10/26/12

It has been a busy several days, but everything we could do has been done. Aside from the physical labor of going through everything to ensure that there were no hidden envelopes (found one) and packing up the books we were going to take, the bulk of the labor was deciding what might be junk, what might be personal family effects, and just generally helping the executor as much as and however she wished. One thing Ken was able to do was contact the appropriate people in the Amateur Press Association and help them load up the club’s stuff that Guy was storing. When Guy’s camera and computer finally came, I checked his email addresses to make sure we hadn’t missed contacting any group and copied his photos to my hard drive for Ken to look at later. We had already scattered Guy’s ashes where he had scattered his wife’s several years earlier.

So today we went sightseeing down towards Cincinnati. If you don’t count a drive-by on I-75 in 1993, I hadn’t been back there since leaving in 1982. First up was my ex’s and my first house. The area was almost unrecognizably changed. The Voice of America antenna farm across the street was gone and it looked like a pricey sub-division was going in. Our house had been altered quite a bit and was for sale. Going to the listing gave me the opportunity to see the mods done on the inside, too.

Then it was over to the apartment complexes Ken had lived in at that time. I remembered the first one, but drew a total blank on the second. The area was looking pretty run down now – I don’t remember it being that way in the late ‘70s.

Lunch at the Century Inn. I had never eaten there (didn’t eat out much at the time) but it has been in business since 1806. Surprisingly (or not) Ken ran into somebody he knew.

From there we went to the GE plant we both worked in and drove around the parking lots. Quite a change from our time; it was practically empty.

Finally we headed down to Union Terminal. Naturally we had to park some distance away since the day had turned cold, blustery, and rainy. Inside was quite pleasant tho. Union Terminal is now a museum complex. We bought the combo ticket and arbitrarily chose to go first to the Natural History Museum. It was very good but the Cincinnati History Museum was even more interesting to us. Alas, we had to skip much of it since we were running out of time. We had dinner plans and needed to get back.

So back out into the even heavier and colder downpour and into the I-75 rush hour traffic. It was really slow going all the way back.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I didn’t think to take my camera out. After all, how do you photograph a memory?

[written 12/12/13]

Back to Ohio

Sunday 10/21/12

On September 15^th Guy Miller passed away at 86 in Jackson WY while on a AAA trip of western National Parks. Ken had talked to him the night before and he was having a ball. Hats off to you, Guy, doing what you loved right to the end.

Since Ken had spent a lot of time in Guy’s company in the last few years, he offered his assistance to Guy’s executor – who gratefully accepted it. It took forever (or seemed to) to get Guy’s ashes and personal effects sent back to Springfield, but, finally, they were.

So it’s another road trip to Ohio. We took the car instead of flying since we’ll be bringing some of Guy’s books back and we’ll be heading up to Lansing to pick up some more of my stuff. Since we’re so close…

Yesterday was just a brutal day on the road, pushing as far as we physically could take it. We had planned to stop for the night in Joplin MO, but couldn’t find a room. So we pushed on to Springfield MO, nope, and finally ended up in Marshfield MO. I suppose there might have been something earlier, but we wanted to stay close to the expressway.

Today we took off bright and early made good time heading east. Other than the usual stops requisite to fully functioning bodies, we made only one sightseeing stop. We collected the Madonna of the Trail in Richmond IN. It only involved a tiny detour, after all.

Madonna of the Trail, Richmond IN

 

Sat.: 1272 mi, 18:59 hrs total, 17:16 hrs moving – as I said, brutal
Sun: 571 mi, 9:20 hrs total, 8:11 hrs moving

[written 12/12/13]