gary's heartland adventure

i'll be posting here and there while on this glorious 9 day venture into the american heartland, i started off by heading right from the kansas city airport to lee's summit, missouri, to walk around a street festival called downtown days. included in that was the opportunity to meet and talk with some of the 90 teams setting up to compete friday & saturday in smokin on the summit, a barbeque competition judged and sanctioned by the kansas city barbeque society. Whoa, these folks take Q seriously.
gotta love some of the team banners

and the homemade smokers were works of welders art

well it's not as exotic as a cruise, but it'll involve trains, planes, horses, rodeo,small town parades, scenery, all spread over kansas, missouri, oklahoma, arkansas. coming to you from the holiday express in springdale arkansas, host hotel for the national railroad historical society 2014 convention

 

well i've never encountered this before, i'm sitting in the kansas city airport waiting for my flight, and the wifi is free but somewhat useless. i cannot view or open my own photo site, i keep getting a blocker popup that tells me i've been blocked due to unsafe,unethical or uses too much resources so that other customers can continue to use and enjoy the free wifi. its kind of useless since mail and annoying ads apparently are all you can connect with. and unethical? that's not holding true, since i can hook right into flickr, and go right to the mommy likes other men page, a truly NSFW group. i have been in airports that charge for wifi, o'hare is one of them, and in plenty that have great high speed wifi, vancouver comes to mind. but never a free hookup that's connection choked down. as far as i'm concerned that's a major negative for an airport, charge me or give me free high speed, but don't bother with restricted. oh and movies, music and radio are all also blocked

 

some of these units are quite large, a number of the teams tow them behind an rv and stay right on site cooking

and one of my favorites, the redneck barbeque team, "we ain't fat on accident"

 

after i left the kc area i went west and south to iola kansas, overnighted, caught some friday night local dirt track action at humboldt speedway, then saturday am began my all day drive through the flint hills scenic area of kansas. largest section of tallgrass praire left in the uited states, and of course i indulged my barn thing

and i don't usually pass historic markers, they give so much info about the area

and there should always be trains

and to me the iconic symbol of the west/farms/ranches, the windmill

and i finally finally got to see the kcs belle paint scheme, these don't come east too often, although i hear more are showing up on unit oil runthroughs, but not as leaders with the cab signal requirements on most eastern tracks

 

i spent a lot of saturday cruising the tallgrass prairie are, also known as the flint hills of kansas. largest piece of original tallgrass prairie left in the us. about 2 counties wide, and 400 miles long, really rich pastureland, a lot of beef is fattened up here in the summer


while passing through the small town of cottonwood falls, i noticed people lining up along the street, it was for the rodeo parade, which was due to start in 40 minutes, so i found a shady spot to park, and watched a real neat small town western parade, led by the colors of course

and the local rodeo club herding some horses down main street

and shriners, on little choppers, of course, i mean what parade would be complete without shriners, with fezzes

 

they even have a hunt club in kansas, the flint hills hunt, in the middle of all those cowboys

and i cannot resist taking a photo of girls, girls on horses is better, girls on appaloosas is best. my first horse, prince, rip, was an app

and of course the winning local team should be in the parade, complete with super soakers and a stash of water balloons to throw back at their friends across the street from me who were firing balloons at them

 

and there should be old men on old tractors, that's an true american tradition in parades

and a young foal, probably its first parade, maybe first time out in public outside the birth pasture

and these are few and far between, and ones in good condition are costly, and i would like to get one, i could cut some hay of my own and just free rake it for my horses each week. the only one near me has a price tag of $3500 and doesn't have a sickle bar

 

Very nice parade set. I love looking at the classic tractors in my hometown carnival parade...

 

thanks red, i too like the old trucks and tractors
saturday night, back in kc, in time to wait out this 1 hour line for some barbeque at oklahoma joe's, the original in an old gas station, worth every minute of the wait, burnt ends to die for


sunday morning, a nice avocado omelette at a place near the university, then off to santa fe junction for some train watching, this place where 5 lines cross and interchange did not dissapoint, never went m,ore than 15 minutes without some train from somewhere

trains overhead

trains underneath

and trains overhead of the overhead, that's right, 3 levels of trainage

and the much desired kansas city terminal line making a move, with their very distinctive paint scheme

and interesting cargo

 

Ditto what Tim said! And the old rusty tank, wonder where that is off to?

 

thanks tim, and john, i wonder if the tank is on it's way to a refurb, those things had a $1million price tag each when new

 

$1,000,000? Sounds cheap by todays standards.

 

so sunday afternoon was spent at a royals game, that'll be over in the ballgames thread soon, and after the game and towards evening, downtown to union terminal foa look inside, and across the tracks on the footbridge to the old freight house for some outstanding barbeque at jack stacks, followed by climbing up the hill to the below WWI monument for a night time shot of union station

inside union station, the cool security guard showed me the way to the 3rd floor for this concourse view

even the ceiling is nicely restored, i love these grand old train stations, such an elegant travel portal

really nicely detailed handbuilt live steam model of an atsf locomotive, i just couldn't figure out a good way to cut the showcase glare

the footbridge over to the old freight house complex

a lot of those trains that pass through santa fe junction go through here, it's only a mile or so away

such good food i bookended the trip eating here a second time

and after dinner and the climb up to the memorial, the union station night shot, a real kansas city night time icon

 

Gary, the interior and exterior shots of Union Station are fantastic! I know that I have said it before, but it is so much fun seeing these parts of the country through your photographs. Thanks for taking us along.

 

Nice work Gary! I'll echo John's statement, thanks for taking us along on your adventures!

 

thanks everyone for the kind words, i really enjoy travel, and particularly wanderlust free form type. dennis i hear you, i have to be one of the few people in america who did not know about 9-11 as it happened, i was on the first day of a 3 day backpacking trip into the foothills of the adirondacks and didn't know anything until i came out of the woods and spent hours at various checkpoints while police searched my pickup because it had a cap on it and apparently everyone was a terrorist for a few days

 

so it's monday, and i'm driving from kansas city to springdale arkansas, a 220 mile direct drive, but that my wandering curiosity managed to turn into a 400 mile looping circular day. including finding this railroad museum in the middle of nowhere kind of, carona kansas, it's nice that they at least have the cosmetically restored steam engine under a nice pavilion


the nice little depot for their headquarters

and please tell me someone else on this site can remember these as a kid

and this is what drew me off the main road, a little sign saying this way to brutus, a huge coal drag, and if it hadn't been raining off and on, i would have gladly paid the $8 to climb all over this monster