What is the definition of crazy?    That’s right, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.   So it goes with big city driving and me.

As I approach Kansas City it is getting dark……bad mojo for a guy who gets lost easily.    Although I have a MapQuest to the rib place my brother is sending me to I make the mistake of calling to confirm directions.   They give different instructions and once again I am wandering soul.    Thank God the waitresses at Brian’s Rib place are saints and take turns talking me in.  Burnt Ends are every bit as good as my brother said.

As I get ready to leave the waitresses get into a disagreement as to how to best get me to hotel downtown.   Not a good sign.  I sense, with all the time they invested in my well being they want to safely see me to the hotel, but wish they were in agreement.

I am lost within minutes and finally pull up to a white car with metro on the side, which I take as a cab.    Ask the lady driver if she can get me directions to the Phillips Hotel.   She replies:   “Do better than that, follow me.”   I suspect she is guiding me down there and then I will give her a spiff for the guide service, however, half way there she gives a short shot of a siren and quick blink of red lights, apparently to warn someone on the street to behave.   She is a cop.  

We get to the intersection of my hotel, and in a slow, exact voice, as I suspect she thinks I am a little slow, she explains how I go around the block on one-way streets and get to the front of hotel.    I take down her license as I am going to write to the Chief of Police and compliment him for hiring guardian angels.   As I go by her car I see the word ‘Supervisor’ on the side…doesn’t surprise me a bit.

Hotel staff is also incredibly friendly and helpful.   So, although I am going to return to my ‘no big city’ rules Kansas City has been a nice surprise.   Not only the burnt ends and grand historic old hotel, but more importantly the wonderful, helpful people who I met everywhere in this city.  

FOUR STARS KC!

As I cross the plains of Missouri the sky is a brilliant blue and I see the contrails of a jet, zooming its way to the southwest, headed to Florida I am sure.   Although I know this road is going to get long and lonely sometimes I do not regret my decision to drive for a minute.  

As the contrails disappear I notice a small plane to my left landing at an airport and I am reminded of how much Bill not only loved to fly his own plane but how much he loved airplanes in general.

Once when he was governor we were able to view the SR71 Blackbird, which was an incredible reconnaissance plane that could fly very high and very fast.   On the wall of the hangar hung a sign that said:   “Yea though I fly through the Valley of Death I shall fear no evil for I am at 77,000 feet, and climbing.”   I would like to think my friend is at this very moment at 77,000 feet and climbing.    He would like that.

I stop at Fulton, MO and find this wonderful Rock and Roll tourist stop and enjoy the nostalgia of place.    When you are born and raised in town that boast that it has the World’s Only Corn Palace you have a certain affinity for tourist places.

However real reason for stopping is that Fulton is where Winston Churchill delivered his famous ‘Iron Curtain’ speech and they have a wonderful visitor center dedicated to that event.

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe……… “
Sir Winston S. Churchill, in a speech at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946, titled “The Sinews of Peace.”

Ah, that Winnie had a way with words.   He was even nice enough to pose for a picture with me.

As I get close to St. Louis the sky is black I drive through a good deal of St. Louis and do it with the deftness of a seasoned cab driver.   Forgotten already is the ineptitude of last night’s IOWA adventures.   (IDIOTS OUT WANDERING AROUND).

From St. Louis it is downhill all the way headed south through parts of Illinois, Kentucky and then Nashville my destination for the evening.   I am picking up temperature with each passing hour and pretty soon it is 42, which is the same temperature back home without the minus in front of it.

In Kentucky I stop at a town called Metropolis, which seems to be entirely dedicated to Superman.    Somewhere there is supposed to be a giant replica of Superman and although my love of tourist kitch is strong I am tired and still have many miles ahead of me before reaching Nashville.   Have to catch the ‘Man of Steel’ statue another time.

Finally arrive Nashville and spend a great evening with my dear friends the former State Treasurer of Tennessee Harlan Mathews and his beautiful wife Pat.    We spent hours reminiscing and I am so glad I have gotten the chance to see them again.