We're Not in Kansas Anymore

July 10th

57,062 Miles

Denver, CO

The main portion of the day is spent driving across Kansas.

This is perhaps the leg of the journey we dreaded the most beforehand.

It actually ends up not being so bad at all.

Kansas is everything I anticipated it would be. Flat and boring, mainly. However, the view of the expansive famland from the road provided a surprisingly beautiful backdrop as we motored down I-70.

Christina was constantly wowed by the various sights of the Midwest, including cattle and religiously-themed billboards. To quote Christina’s blog http://ontheroadwiththeenglishteacher.blogspot.com/, which is infinitely better and more dutifully updated, “Though we didn't find Dorothy or Toto in Kansas, they certainly wanted us to find Jesus. (See pic above).”

One of the coolest and most unexpected things we saw while driving through Kansas was several large wind farms. Some people complain that the windmills, which are used to generate clean electricity, mar the landscape. I think they’re beautiful and what they represent is even more beautiful. I was rather enchanted by their movement and the profile they cut against the landscape and had to be careful to keep my eyes mainly on where I was going.

The closest thing to an incident that occurred was in one county in Western Kansas. The Sheriff was patroling on the freeway, and when we rolled up on him he slowed down to match my speed, gave me a stern “I know you’re a punk kid driving a Mustang with out of state plates through my county” kind of a look, and then spent the entire length of his jurisdiction either right behind behind me, just off my rear bumper in the other lane, or next to me leaning halfway over his center armrest to mean mug me.

To antagonize him a bit, I slowed to just above 40mph (the posted ‘minimum speed’) just to let him know I knew he was following me specifically.

This was probably tantamount to seeing how close you can stick your hand to the mouth of a chained pit bull, but at the time I just wanted to prove a point and feel like I was sticking it to the man.

I’m lucky he didn’t pull me over just for ‘driving funny’ and throw me in some po-dunk jail.

We make it to Denver with no actual trouble.

On recommendation we head straight to the trendy “Lo-Do” (Lower Denver) area to grab the best pizza in town. Afterwards we walk around a bit and I’m impressed with the shops, restaurants, and bars that line the main drag. There is also a free street car that one can ride to get around.

Our original lodging plans falling through, we book a hotel featured in the “Let’s Go!” book about road tripping in the US.

For $69 a night we get a fridge, a king sized bed, free parking, and free wireless. It’s down south from the main downtown.

What we also get is an extremely ghetto hip-hop club across the street and interesting people hanging around outside.

While we’re checking in a woman… let’s just say a large black woman who was dressed like she was ‘working’ comes in. She asks the man at the desk if he has a $10 bill for $10 in quarters. He says no. Then she turns to me and asks if either one of us has a ten. I do. So I take her up on her offer. As she counts out $10 in quarters on the counter in front of us she explains how her boyfriend won’t let her out of the house with any paper money, which explains all the coins.

I’m just happy to help someone out, and I figure the quarters will be useful for tolls and meters down the road.

The rules posted in the hotel lobby are clearly aimed at curbing prostitution in the hotel, and other seedy behavior. I’d never seen anything like it.

The room itself defines flea bag motel. There are cigarette burns in the bed spread. Odd stains are found throughout the room. And the shower makes me feel like I’d be a lot cleaner by not taking one.

Did I mention free wireless?

That being the only true important factor, Christina and I happily take to catching up on e-mails.
Later I go outside to get some air and see the masses of people streaming out of the hip hop club that we’d been jamming to through the paper thin walls of our room for the past couple hours.
There is a police car stopped at the light in front of our hotel. I notice that when the light turns green it stays put. They’re waiting there to see what’s going to develop from the crowd. This isn’t anything I haven’t seen in front of the bars by my house in Columbus.

A closer look at the police car and I notice that in block capitals on the side of the police car it says, “GANG UNIT.”

I go back inside and make sure our room is dead bolted.