World Travels

Most of my weekend was spent enjoying the vast open vistas along I-70 between Denver and Wichita. My dad asked me how many times I've made that drive, and I estimated the answer to be somewhere around 100. I know the road pretty well...and as long as I have a functioning air-conditioner, decent sunglasses, and something energetic to crank up on the radio, I can handle it just fine.

Other than the gigantic and ever-expanding wind farm just west of Salina, the scenery remains pretty much as it has been since I first made the trip as a youth. Farms, religious billboards, the occasional construction cones, and of course, the World's Largest Prairie Dog -- the sights of I-70 have become embedded in my subconscious like a familiar piece of uncomfortable furniture, or an old song that you never really liked but now know oh so well.

There probably were twice as many windmills as I had seen on my last trip. I have no problem with that. The wind is gonna blow across there -- we might as well capture the energy. And I actually enjoy the aesthetics of the darn things. There's a particular grace to their dance as the gargantuan blades spin under nature's pressure. If you stood directly beneath one, it would probably feel like an Edgar Allen Poe nightmare device threatening to cleave the world atwain with each whooshing revolution, but at a distance, they're reminiscent of a picnic where all the kids are blowing on pinwheels.

Other than the sprouting of the wind farms, the only noticeable landmark change has been the disappearance of the Bear House at Bunker Hill. For decades, the restaurant beside the road boasted a cage with a couple of live black bears, which provided the appeal to pull off the road in what is essentially the middle of nowhere. Legend has it that Muhammad Ali once pulled in there for a sandwich, and had his photo taken with the bears. Whether it was just that the bears got too old, or whether PETA pressures shut them down, I don't know. But there appears to be no more bear-related restaurants anywhere along the road. Bummer.

Anyway, I was merely performing a "Transporter" mission. Get there, pick up the patriarch, and head home. I'd stay the night, just so I could get enough sleep to make the drive safely. (I can no longer duplicate the feat I did when in college; where I drove from Lawrence KS to Denver and back by myself within a 24-hour period. I stopped only long enough to attend a Blue Oyster Cult concert, then turned around and headed home without sleeping. That was probably pretty dumb, but I was young and energetic, and I really enjoyed seeing BOC live.)

Because I didn't have to be in Wichita early, I took the time to go for a bike ride with Kim starting at sunrise on Saturday morning. We rode up Highgrade Road and came home through CityView for a nice workout before I had to leave. I finally was able to get a fairly decent photo as Kim pulled into the schoolhouse at the top of the mountain:



My dad is 92 years old, and is doing pretty well. His hearing isn't great, so it's a bit tough to converse at times, but we did manage to get in a good chat during the drive back west. We talked about some of his previous travels, and especially about the time he attended the Paris air show. And when we arrived back at my condo, we turned on the closing ceremonies of the Olympics, which went to great effort to capsulize the culture of Great Britain. It made me realize that I haven't traveled as much as I'd like lately. In my opinion, making the same trip back and forth across western Kansas 100 times just doesn't count as bonafide tourism.

(On a related topic, did everyone else find the closing ceremonies to be as delightfully baffling as I did? I had no idea what was going on, and couldn't begin to speculate what sorts of drugs the organizers had ingested when they thought up this bizarre spectacle...but it made me laugh. The flying Scottish saxophonist was my favorite part. What the heck was that all about?)

As least I'll be traveling to Seattle soon. The primary goal is to visit my son, of course, but I'm hoping to visit some cool local attractions and geographical sights while I'm there.

But first, I'm going to hang out with my dad a bit while he's in town. I'll let you know about those adventures as they unfold. In the meantime, enjoy your travels, wherever they may take you. Have a great day!