The Great Plains

Day 3
Today was a fun day. Our first stop was in Kirkwood, Missouri at the Elvis Is Alive museum. This place was great. There is a huge plywood Elvis out front, and signs constantly remind you that "A Current Affair" has filmed there.

There are photos of the camera crew chowing down on burgers, the camera crew singing Elvis karakoe, the camera crew....well, you get the idea. There is also a portion of the museum with a wax dummy in a coffin made up to look like the SAME wax dummy that was used at Elvis' "funeral." You have to stop here. And best of all, it's FREE!

After our moving experience and truly believing that Elvis is indeed alive and well, we headed into Kansas. Believe what you've heard: Kansas is one heck of a boring state. We were doing 80 through most of the state, and it seemed to take forever. Yawn! There isn't much to see except farmland. We zoomed through Kansas City (which was almost on a Milwaukee-dirty level) and pulled into the Kansas Welcome Center.

We wanted to stop there to find out how to get to Ft. Leavenworth Prison, you know, "The Farm." Matt was really interested in seeing the place, but NOBODY would tell us where to find it! When we asked the lady at the Welcome Center she replied,"Oh, you don't want to see that," and woudn't tell us another thing. How annoying! We kept prying her for info, but she was tight-lipped.

We drove ourselves to Leavenworth and set out to find the infamous prison. We stopped at every little store and restaurant in town, and NOBODY would tell us where to find the prison. Finally, a lady working at a gas station pointed us in the right direction. Eventually we found the place.

You see, Leavenworth is a town of prisons. There are probably 20 or so prisons there! Even the banners hanging across Main Street advertise "Prison Guard Appreciation Day." We were both surprised at how close we could get to the actual prison. We drove right up to the front and snapped a couple of photos. Ft. Leavenworth Penitentiary is a very scary place.

After driving through boring boring boring farmland, we found some welcome entertainment on Kansas AM radio. We listened to the Christian stations and had a good laugh. Wow. They are big on preachin' down there!

The next stop in Kansas was the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden is in the middle of a quiet residential neighborhood in Lucas, KS. You round the corner and there it is--a tiny little house with huge, demented, Picasso-like social statements made out of concrete. Most are quite disturbing, with fire-breathing dragons and crucifixes and giant bats and other bizarre, twisted images of mythical creatures preying on all that is American.

We trucked on to Russell, Kansas, the Hometown of Bob Dole. This claim to fame is painted on every damn street corner. On the water tower. On sidewalks. On the side of barns. On fences. On storefronts. The folks in Russell are awfully proud of a loser.

Day 4
I was very surprised at the landscape when we entered Colorado. I guess I expected huge mountains as soon as I crossed the state line, but instead, it looked a heck of a lot like Kansas. Matt is originally from Denver, so we stayed a night so he could show me around.

The highlight of my Colorado visit was definitely Casa Bonita! Casa Bonita is a Mexican restaurant that serves crappy food and sits in a rundown strip mall in a not-so-nice area of Denver. The inside of the restaurant looks like a South of the Border version of Disneyland. There are a variety of different dining rooms, from a mine (complete with mining carts, dim lighting and where you can even hear the miners' voices coming from inside caves) to a Royal Dining area to my favorite--tables right beside a huge indoor waterfall where cliff divers put on free shows during dinner! But wait, there's more! There are free puppet shows, a pirate battle show, a huge game arcade, a shopping "district," a strolling mariachi band, and Black Bart's Cave, a creepy climb-through "attraction" with scary special effects. You have to buy dinner to get in, but the upset tummy you'll get a few hours later is worth it!

We left Denver and headed West through gorgeous snow-capped mountains. The mountain streams were so clear and cool, and the views were breathtaking. Up in the mountains you could usually see native animals, abandoned gold mines and other mini "ghost towns."

After passing through the Eisenhower tunnel (the one from Stephen King's story THE STAND), we cruised on to the trendy mountain village of Vail. Vail is great! I would love to vacation there, even though I don't ski. The resorts there were beautiful, and it was obvious that even one night there would mean a heavy price tag. Everything was overpriced, from gas to Burger Kings ($6 for a value meal) to Cokes at the convenience stores. When I'm rich, I'll be back. We also tried to see Aspen, but after driving through scary mountain roads (we even passed the Continental Divide), the stupid road was closed until Memorial Day. There was no way to get to Aspen! I was very disappointed.

The scenery through Glenwood Canyon was some of the prettiest on the entire trip. The roads are cut through the canyon, so you can look up and have this feeling of being very far below land. I was more impressed with this place than the Grand Canyon! We also visited the little town of Glenwood Springs and saw (and smelled) the stinky hot sulphur springs. People seemed to really enjoy soaking in that crap. Of course, they probably threw away their bathing suits when they got home....

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