Kansas is Beautiful, not Boring

Ben and I have been driving through Kansas the past couple of days, and everyone we spoke to said we were going to be thoroughly bored by the state. Although we have definitely driven through endless acres of cornfields and cattle pastures, it's not like anything either of us has experienced before. Part of the point of this trip for both of us it to see and experience people and places that are unfamiliar to us. And for that reason, we actually found it to be beautiful and enjoyed ourselves very much. Saturday night we stayed in a state park, and on Sunday we biked around the park and went swimming. We liked it so much there that we didn't end up leaving until about 5pm. We drove for just two hours and stopped at another state park. It was just as pretty there, but it was too cold yesterday to swim again. We finally made it to Colorado yesterday, but we still have yet to see any mountains! Today's drive will be through the mountains into the city of Denver, and we're hoping Inigo will make the climb well.

Below are some pictures I took on Sunday evening while Ben was driving on Rt 36 through Kansas. The sun was going down behind some clouds, and it was an incredible sight.









-Lily

St Louis -OR- How to have more fun than anyone else.

The best way to have more fun than anyone else is to go to the City Museum in St Louis. It's basically a huge playground for kids of all ages, and the only people having as much fun as you are the other people there with you. There are a ton of slides and tunnels and caves and everything you can imagine. There is actually a seven-story spiral slide you can go on, but you have to climb up seven flights of stairs to get there of course. The museum is housed in the old International Shoe Co. building, so the seven-story slide is actually a leftover "shoe chute" - like a garbage chute (what I thought it was at first) but for shoes (I probably didn't need to explain that). We did too much there to describe everything, but I'll just say that it is a must-see place for anyone visiting St Louis. Even a quadriplegic could enjoy themselves purely for the visual interest.

While in St Louis, we had dinner at Niche with our new friends Bredon and Carolyn, and enjoyed the hell out of it! I arrived a few hours early to take some pictures in the kitchen, which I will post at some point. It was pretty quiet in the kitchen, but everyone I met was really cool. For dinner, we all decided to let the kitchen send whatever they wanted, and Ben eventually had to tell them to stop because it was just so much food. Ben will write more about it, but highlights for me were: (a) eating the raw tomato slice in the tomato consumme; (b) eating RAW fish for the first time; (c) eating the entire piece of grilled trout; and (d) really liking all of the above.

The next night, Ben and I also at An American Place with his cousin Barry and Barry's wife Laura. Again, we were all very full by the end of an awesome meal. The next night we went to eat at Zia's on "the hill", the Italian area of St Louis, and it was pretty decent, but not nearly as good as the previous two nights. The best food that evening was when we went to Ted Drewe's for frozen custard. Damn it was so good, and I was really regretting having filled up so much at dinner.

We're now in Kansas City, and although we thought we were going to stay here for a couple of days, we realized that there's only one thing we are actually interested in here: going to Arthur Bryant's for BBQ. So we'll do that tonight, and then hit the road again tomorrow to head towards Denver.

We filled our gas tank yesterday for a ridiculous price of $3.229/gal. Then yesterday evening we saw it for $3.199/gal. I was sad we hadn't waited to save even more, but not as sad as today when we saw it for $3.119/gal! I don't know why the hell gas is so cheap here, but I am really not complaining.

Current Trip Stats: 3605 miles; 378 gallons of gas; 9.54 overall mpg

-Lily

A Sidewalk in Memphis Gave Me the Blues

We spent last night on Beale street in downtown Memphis, enjoying some drinks and some live blues, jazz, soul, and funk music. Our night was cut short when we got off the trolley at one point and stepped onto the sidewalk, where my clunky new shoes and mild inebriation caused me to roll my ankle pretty badly. It's still hurting a lot this morning and I'm going to try not to put any weight on it today. I'm pretty sure nothing's broken, though - it feels like a really bad sprain, and I'll probably be fine in a few days.

We had a great time yesterday. We went to Interstate Bar-B-Que for lunch, one of Memphis's temples of pork. Then we went to Sun Studio, where Elvis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, B.B.King, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others recorded early in their careers in the 1950's. We made it just in time for the guided tour, which was a lot of fun. In between explaining the history of the studio and the exhibits displayed, the tour guide played a lot of music, including the first, unreleased recording of Elvis, and some songs from a few legendary blues musicians from the 50's. It was a great time.

Yesterday (Friday) we noticed a bizarre phenomenon with the hike in gas prices due to Hurricane Ike slamming into some Texas oil refineries. Gas prices were very low in Tennessee on Thursday - usually under $3.50/gal. On Friday, we saw an Exxon selling gas at $3.99/gal, right next to that a BP station selling gas at $3.44/gal. That's a difference in 55 cents a gallon, right next to each other! That particular BP was a day behind the other gas stations in raising their prices, but hey, the lines of cars vying for time at their pumps were almost out onto the street. Another gas station a mile down the road was selling for $4.19/gallon. That's two gas stations one mile apart, with a 75 cent difference in price per gallon!

-Wax

Down South

We had a great time in Atlanta while we were there. It was great spending time with family, and we got to see a bit of the city when we stayed with Lily's uncle Bob for a few days. We went to the Georgia Aquarium, the largest aquarium in the world, where we saw whale sharks feeding and beluga whales having fun and showing off. Lily will post pictures soon in her photo blog.

Last night we arrived in Memphis, where we're staying at the Elvis Presley Boulevard RV Park. We took route 72 through Alabama and northern Mississippi on our way to here. Man, there's nothing as far as the eye can see in northern Mississippi. Route 72 is a very straight road with very predictable hills through forest with the occasional dreary looking farm. I could see about five miles ahead of me and behind me and I rarely saw another car on either side of the two lane highway. It makes for a boring yet peaceful drive. As we go west, I'm sure we'll start to encounter more and more of this.

Today we went to Graceland, because hey, it's Memphis and we're a few blocks away. Since it's so expensive ($29 to see it all), we decided to see Elvis's automobile museum. It was small, but pretty cool. Elvis really had a great taste in cars. Lily took pictures, which I will bug her to post. It bothers me how much Elvis is exploited at Graceland - all the museums are expensive, and there are tons of gift shops selling some really lame stuff that I can't believe people actually buy. But Elvis is and was larger than life, so why not celebrate his life by throwing money in the garbage.

From where we've been so far in the south we've notices some interesting, some troubling trends. There are churches everywhere - in really rural areas along some of the local highways it seems like half of the buildings we see are churches. Also, there are lots and lots and lots of fast food joints in the towns. I'm going to write more about that in my food blog. College football is HUGE in the south. Oh, and for some reason there are a ridiculous amount of subdivisions down south. Even though there is so much unpopulated land down here, sometimes it looks like over half the population is living in very close quarters in the same looking quarter-of-a-house. I would estimate that %75 of the buildings we see are churches, fast food restaurants, or subdivision housing.

Well that was a crabby blog...

-Wax

Congratulations to the Singers!

Ben and I have been in Roswell, GA, helping his sister and her family get ready for the baby. Mainly, Ben has been cooking a ton of food so they have yummy meals to eat in the next couple of weeks while Carrie is recovering. Ben hasn't really needed my help in the kitchen, except for taking care of a ton of dishes. Now they have a really well stocked freezer with three to five meals each of gumbo, bolo ragu, grilled chicken, and corn ragu.

On Saturday night, Carrie and Eugene decided to take us to Greenwood's to experience some southern cooking. Starting at 6pm, when we left, Carrie was having contractions, and all through the meal, Eugene was timing them. They thought it was probably just "practice" labor, which happened last time Carrie was pregnant. Around 9pm, after we got home, they decided to head to the hospital, and Ben's niece, Mia Heather Singer, was born around 8am, Sunday, Aug 31, 2008, about two weeks early. She was 6 1/2 pounds and absolutely adorable! Mom and baby are doing well, if a little tired. Here are a few pictures:

Looking like a grumpy old man:

With her proud big sister, Michelle:

-Lily