High Plains Panhandler

T-7 minutes until Harry Potter

Midwest Trip, Part 6

We left Chicago on Friday the 13th, which sounds scary, especially considering the hotel we stayed in that night outside St. Louis had that particular neon sign sputtering, permanent twilight shadowy murderous aura about it.

The freeway going into St. Louis was filled with bumper-to-bumper traffic miserableness, wretched news for us because we were trying to get to the City Museum to spend at least a few hours there before it closed early at 5:00.

But we made it, and it was glorious. The City Museum is full of all sorts of sculpture craziness that kids can crawl in, through, or on.

Here in Amarillo is a guy named Stanley Marsh. He invented the Cadillac Ranch, which is a bunch of old cadillacs shoved into the ground outside of town. The Cadillac Ranch sounds much more interesting than it ends up being in person, because once you walk up to it and see it's ten dilapidated, tetanus-infested jagged hunks of metal with flayed rubber tires that people have spray painted "Bobby waz heer," and "Beowulf rocks," you scratch your head and meditate upon meaninglessness.

That said, The St. Louis City Museum is Stanley Marsh done right, something big and bold and fun and inspiring done for the greater good rather than for the lesser aliens from Alpha Ceti V.

After the City Museum closed, we made our way to the St. Louis Arch and rode the tiny capsule space elevator to the very top and enjoyed the view, crammed in with all the other elevator pod people. I was nervous that the whole arch might just fall over on its side, since it seemed to be such a ribbon thin piece of architecture, but we were no worse for wear when we left, the Arch still standing magnificently throwing its shadow over the Mississippi River.

We hit the road after that, changing our hotel to the Norman Bates affair I've mentioned earlier. We did this because our reserved hotel was smack downtown, and we didn't want to be stuck in traffic the next day (it was going to be a long drive the next day because we weren't stopping until Amarillo). So we drove and I dialed up all sorts of weird and bizarre places to stay on my iPhone until ended 40 miles out on a large hill surrounded by trees and, no doubt, hidden burial grounds of long missing travelers.

The next day we drove until the hills and trees disappeared. There were fewer bridges, fewer rivers, and the smell of cattle and dry wind crept up on us carefully, slowly, and without pity until we were home.

Midwest Trip, Part 5

Tonight: a Big Event. Finally, after only listening to it through podcasts during bike rides, Suzanne and I got to see Wait Wait . . . Don't Tell Me, which was, of course, hilarious.

It was different than I had expected, though. For some reason, I thought the panel would be center stage, Peter Sagal stage left, and Carl Kasell stage right. I also expected Peter to be wearing red tennis shoes, but then I realized I was thinking of the wrong show.

Midwest Trip, Part 4

Moe, Suzanne's Dad's friend and great guy, went insane and let us stay at his fantabulous place in Chicago, which is a block away from the glory that is the American Girl store. Once squirreled away at Moe's, we had Chicago at our fingertips. We celebrated by eating pizza and hitting the museums.

(Later, once I was back at work, someone asked me if we had fun. I told her we absolutely did, and then I rattled off all the great things we saw at the Field Museum, and the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Art Institute. And then she gave me a serious look and said, "But did you do anything fun? You know, like a water park or something?")

Other non-fun, non-waterpark highlights: Lincoln Park zoo, the Nature Museum, Millennium Park bean, fountain, and symphony rehearsal that we listened in on, and the Untouchables Tour (a bus ride around Chicago that showed us all the scary mobster spots, watering holes, and . . . murrrder!).

Midwest Trip, Part 3

We made our way from Kansas City to Quincy, Illinois to visit Suzanne's uncle Jim, who the kids have named Grunkle Jim (for Great Uncle), and once there we made our way to Bonkers.

Bonkers used to be (pre-Rainforest Cafe days) Alex's favorite place in the known universe. It's full of slides and ropes, and climbing things. Its Aztec name is Destroyer of Adult Knees. I know this first-hand, because I was the instigator of a marathon Monster Tag session. I left wounded and creaky, the elasticity of my carefree, youthful days now gone.

We played quite a few rousing games of Uno with Grunkle Jim, who is a kind and gentle player. The kids, on the other hand, loved playing dirty tricks with their cards. I kept losing magnificently.

Midwest Trip, Part 2

It was a packed day today, crammed with all sorts of American history and rolling Kansas hills.

We started early (after our freezing night at the Best Western President's Inn - I had set the air conditioner too cold and Megan complained she had frost bite) to make the first showing of the Eisenhower biography movie at 8:00. During the movie, which was mainly made up of black and white photos, Alex turned around and gave me the thumbs down, mouthing the words, "It's boring!" A true historian in the making.

We toured the museum, half of which was dedicated to WWII - it was pretty neat to see the pen the Germans used to surrender (it was amazing to us that here was Eisenhower, a soldier most of his life, yet he truly knew the terrible effects of war and was, if anything, a man of peace), and then walked through Eisenhower's childhood home. The docents in the house gave us the quick highlights and told us the place wasn't even wired for electricity until Ike was ten years old. So, of course, I had to point out to the kids that meant no Disney channel or internet. And then a woman pushing past me to get to the exit said, "Yeah, because Al Gore wasn't around to invent it."

I think she was trying to be clever, and I wanted to tell her he never said that, but who am I to argue against the mythos of the revisionist far right. So instead I gave her a look you might reserve after accidentally stumbling across someone's nasty gas problem, and she laughed nervously and shrunk away.

A few pictures later, we hit the road for Wamego, Kansas, home of the Oz museum, a smallish museum that struck us as a showcase for someone's Wizard of Oz collection. We saw plenty of "replicas" and "reproductions," and I learned Buddy Epson was supposed to be the Tin Man, but the makeup they threw on him coated his lungs and sent him to the hospital. There was also a poster of the of the scarecrow hanging in the corner, but the scarecrow on it looked like a zombie, not something you'd put in a cornfield. Yellow Brick Road Killer Zombies. Now that'd be a movie.

Another sign said, "Out of the 124 original 'munchkins', only 12 remain." I put 'only 12 remain' in italics because this part of the sign was typed on a small paper rectangle. Apparently, when the next munchkin kicks the bucket, the museum people will type up a new rectangle that will say 'only 11 remain.' Then they'll glue it over the old paper. I've never considered the ravaging effects of mortality on the tourist museum business.

After the Oz museum, we had a picnic lunch at a park a block away. I though I was being smart bringing the leftover chicken from dinner last night for my lunch, but the steroid laden fridge in our hotel room froze the chicken into blocks of ice, and when I bit into my lunch, I felt like I was biting into cold concrete. Curses.

We played a little at the park and then we jumped back in the van for the drive to the Truman Presidential library and museum in Independence, Missouri, just east of St. Louis. We were surprised at how fancy the museum was - and how little it went into the Korean War (it did spend time on the Truman doctrine, but danced around its profound effects in Korea and Vietnam). The kids made their own campaign buttons in a little art area downstairs, using the "I Like Ike" button for a model. Alex's button said, "Vote for me!" But then he changed it to "Vote for Alex Nair!" Colleen's button said, "Vote for Queen Colleen. I'll make your life excite-ing!" and Megan's said,

On our way out of the museum, Suzanne wondered if the Kansas City Shakespeare festival was going on, so I whipped out the good ole iPhone, did a quick Google search, and discovered it was going on this very weekend. So I made a few taps to get a map to the festival, and a few minutes later we were on our way.

We made it just in time for a puppet show about Romeo and Juliet followed by some juggling. Then we decided to walk around the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and check out the new Bloch Building (we didn't think we could stay for the 8:00 performance of the real Romeo and Juliet. Instead of a blanket, we had Alex who'd probably be bored out of his skull during the show).

Luckily, the museum didn't close until 9:00, which gave us a good bit of time to walk around the new exhibits. Megan paused at one sculpture hanging from the wall and said to me, "I could put up my beanbag chair and call it a modern work of art!" Her criticism didn't fall on deaf ears. I considered the sculpture before me and was forced to agree.

Colleen almost walked on a part of the floor that had different tiles than anywhere else. She danced away from it at the last second and said, "I almost walked on that art!" I'm not sure it was art, but better safe than sorry.

Of course, there were some gorgeous works, but still, it's easy to make fun. I mean, hey, look what we've got in Amarillo. Eat a 72 ounce steak in an hour and you get it for free. Now that puts the pop in pop culture.

Midwest Trip, Part 1

Busy days, but we took a week last month to drive to Chicago, and on the way we stopped and explored and ate chicken.