February 16, 2008

Down through Iowa: It took me a while to pack the vehicle after spending a week in a single place. Fortunately it was a bright sunny day so I decided to through four bags in the bed of the truck to be dealt with when I was not trying to get the wheels turning. The only significant point I passed was the Mississippi / Missouri river divide – for some reason we take for granted the different watersheds that support us – I wonder if ‘Water Wars’ and other books that predict the next cultural and political conflicts will be about resources like water, will change that under-appreciation? I had my own appreciation when it started raining fiercely a few hours later and I had to hastily fit all the bags in the cab of the beast. Awesome!

Just west of the divide on 30, I passed through the towns of Arcadia, West Side, and Vail – they combine their forces to have a highschool of about 100 students ARWEVA, that has managed to make it to the state tournament for both boys and girls basketball. Many of the people I work with were sure to leave the office in time to go to the town of Denison (home of Donna Reed) to see the games while I caught bits of the games on the radio.

I stopped at every gallery and antique store that I passed taking 59 South – some of them were junk shops and some were just craft stores and others were just closed. When I passed into Missouri I started back tracking over the same roads I’d seen a few weeks ago so I expedited my journey by using the interstate with a brief detour to St. Josephs. Kerry explained the history to me later, that St. Joe’s and Kansas City were approximately the same size and stature in the middle 19th century – until the railroads decided to build their Missouri River crossing at Kansas City – making it a critical waypoint for the railroads and all the industries that relied on rail (especially cattle herding). St. Joe’s never recovered and I saw evidence of a second tier city when I stopped downtown at an ‘antique store’ that was more of a pawnshop / gunshop.

Savoy, Herefords, Grinders: I met Kerry downtown near her office and we stopped at the Savoy Hotel for a cocktail – it is the style of hotel that is unique in its attention to detail with tile floor, textured glass, and dark old wood. The historic hotel was frequented by Harry S. Truman (I love that everyone uses the middle initial) and based on the average age of the clientele, it is still mostly frequented by people who knew him. It was raining fully at this point, good for cleaning off the beast, but a beast for dealing with two cars going to dinner; at Herefords – because the wait was over an hour we had immediate seating at the bar, where unfortunately we were close enough to the taps that when the keg of Boulevard Pale Ale was finished, it sprayed Kerry with a shower of foam. We finished the evening by visiting Grinders – a bar owned by an artist Kerry knows – one of the coolest bars based on the layout, the expansive beers on tap, the friendliness of the staff and the patrons, the music, and the decorations – specifically a ventilation duct that the artist had converted from a simple rectangle to a tapering and twisting metal finger reaching from the floor over the bar about fifty feet.

Several unique beers were sampled, but the first and the strongest was what piqued my interest the most: Maudite by Unibroue (French Canadians, sore-ry) the makers of one of my favorite bottle conditioned beer (carbonation by yeast rather than artificial introduction) La Fin du Monde. The analogy I would make is champagne vs. wine – it is both fermented grape juice but the different types of yeast and the finishing of the product make them almost incomparable. These beers have a much higher alcohol content (7-8% versus the usual 3-4%) but they don’t compromise on flavor to get there – these are rich beers with complex ale flavors that saturate the palette, without too much hoppiness. What was surprising was that the keg dispensing of this normally bottle conditioned beer did not diminish the tiny and abundant carbonation bubbles. Like chimay and other strong beers – limit yourself to one, or make sure that Kerry is going to be the designated driver from the bar.

Pics: a) dividing lines, b) savoy glass, c) savoy glass bearers, d) grinders hvac

Le Stats:
Today Miles: 382, Trip Miles: 8,024
Total Gallons of Fuel Trip to Date: 456.229
Overall Average Miles per gallon (MTD/GTD): 17.59
Air Miles from Paris, France to KC, MO, USA: 4,511.24
Age of Lestat Lioncourt (Ann Rice Character): 247 yrs 101 days
Flying speed of a vampire bat, mph: 4.9
Estimated time Lestat would have to fly to visit me in KC: 921 hours