10 Minutes to Downtown

July 9th

57,062 Miles

Kansas City, KS

We leave Hannibal in the late afternoon and trek across Missouri towards Kansas City.
Missouri is as uneventful as the rest of the Midwest.

We enter Kansas City on the eastern edge and are greeted by one of the most depressed areas I’ve seen in my travels. The condition worsens as we pass check cashing businesses, then pawn shops, then bail bond places. There are destroyed cars along the side of the street and abandoned buildings with broken out windows. The police presence is strong, and the few I make eye contact with are about as scary as any of the destitute inhabitants I see standing on street corners or sitting on the front steps of frighteningly decayed houses.

Behind an apartment complex children are jumping on a pile of old mattresses for entertainment.

We cross over the river and are in a considerably less-sketchy area.

We find Christina’s friend Sisco’s apartment and upon unloading our bags jump into his car to find some genuine Kansas City barbeque.

His favorite establishment is right down the street and, appropriately enough, attached to a gas station. They close early, however, and we’re too late to enjoy what Sisco considers the best barbeque in the city.

We head further across town, past a very impressive shopping and entertainment district which we’re informed is modeled after Madrid, and are able to sit down for a delicious meal.

Afterwards Christina and Sisco head out on the town while I head to bed, anticipating the longest leg of the trip so far that we’ll be embarking on the next day. 600 miles across the entire state of Kansas and a good chunk of Colorado to reach Denver.