They call Madison “the Berkeley of the East”, due to its leftist campus politics, etc. This was in fact the first city in the US to have a municipal gay rights ordinance on the books.

It’s definitely an attractive place. The city surrounds an isthmus between two lakes. Thus, there is s a very pronounced east and west side, and travel between the two is sometimes difficult thanks to the bottleneck caused by locating downtown on the isthmus.

 

Given all this, it’s interesting to see how strangely conservative the place appears on the surface. I saw much more “collegiate preppy” than “collegiate punk”. I didn’t really sample the gay scene here, being warned that most of the interesting nightlife options perished in the Hotel Washington fire a couple of years ago.

I did cruise the State Street campus strip a bit and also found a few thrift stores and an excellent used book store, Shakespeare’s, where I scored an original 1964 New York World’s Fair guidebook pretty cheap.

Definitely a nice enough place.

It was cloudy and rainy, so I skipped the top of the Arch and just sort of looked around downtown and along the remnants of Route 66 after taking the car in for a checkup. I also didn’t venture back out last night, more from a lack of energy than a lack of “courage”…

Once out of St. Louis, I hit Route 66 in a major way. After a stop at a little roadside “welcome center” in Hamel, staffed by a very nice and talkative woman, I was on the way. Two things amazed me: the excellent route markers supplied by the state of Illinois, and the friendliness of the people in the establishments along the old road. Once they learned I was traveling 66, I was treated to stories, photos, and (loved this part) free stuff! Excellent drive.

 

The Ariston Cafe in Litchfield is a definite Route 66 must. The food was great, and the owners showed me books and pictures and introduced me to the German tourists at the other end of the counter who were also traveling “the road”. Apparently, Route 66 tourism is big with Germans.

 

After a very long drive through the fertility of central Illinois, I finally arrived at Steven’s house in Madison. Very nice guy, very nice town. And since the heat had finally let up by this point, very nice sleep. This was a welcome thing.

Madison is not an exciting place by any stretch of the imagination, but I found plenty to do there and had a great time. Especially compared to last year’s visit, which was essentially a convenience store run during the Minneapolis trip.

 

As I left KC, I had breakfast at my first Waffle House. Grits are always a happy thing. The run through Missouri was not bad and the state flew by pretty quickly. After the west and Kansas, a few hills and trees were most welcome. Missouri skies during the day look as if a huge storm could develop at any second. It never happened.

Now I’ve made it to St. Louis. I’m reminded of just how much a nervous white boy I can be, simply because this town gives me the willies so far. I guess it’s a combination of the fact that my car seems to be a little cranky, and of the one or two wrong turns I made which put me on some fairly intimidating streets. I’d like it much better here with a tour guide. Somehow, though, I feel I will find the “courage” to venture back out later tonight.

 

I have to say that my entrance to the city along old Route 66 was a little disappointing. Only three motels on the whole stretch, none of them spectacular. Ted Drewe’s Frozen Custard was pretty cool, but I was a little disappointed to find that they don’t serve any food. I had a hankering for a hot dog, but had to settle for turkey with the old folks at a nearby cafeteria (but at least it was “free pie” night.)

Off to do whatever comes next now and finish it in time to take the car for a morning checkup and visit the top of the arch tomorrow.

 

Aah…Saint Louis. Ultimately, I found I was a bit unprepared for the level of decay I found there. It was staggering, as if the entire northern part of the city had just been abandoned. I’ve read about the phenomenon of entire urban blocks returning to grassland as the buildings which once occupied them burned or simply collapsed, but I’d never really seen it until now. Frightening. Once again, it’s as if the residents just decided one day to abandon a great city and go somewhere else. In areas like this, you find yourself being scared not of the people you see on the streets, but of the fact that you don’t see ANY people on the streets.

Y’know, if the weather in KC didn’t really suck, it might be on my short list of potential new homes. What a great place; last time I was here, I must have managed to miss everything good about it.

 

In my short visit, I was treated to an amazing tour of the city, courtesy of Bernie, a photo exhibit on urban decay (always a favorite pet obsession) courtesy of Bentley, the aforementioned photographer, barbecue at Gates, quality time in an abandoned reservoir, beer bust at the Dixie Belle, my first White Castle in almost a year, and the grand opening of the KC Jazz Museum. Oh yeah…I forgot the Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch…

 

I lucked into lodgings with some people who are both very proud of their city and very well-versed in its mysteries. It’s not often I find myself sitting in a gallery after hours drinking beer and discussing urban form. I was pleased.

 

Biggies on the tour included the first Russell Stover candy store ever, a few roadside gems,North Kansas City, the President Hotel, and an industrial area (the West Bottoms?) which I want very much to colonize. KC has a tremendous number of great old buildings downtown — more than most cities of a similar size — and this is probably a result of the fact that the 80’s building boom largely bypassed the city. But I see signs that development may finally be threatening some of these gems. It’s a shame.

 

  

The Jazz Museum opening was a lucky coincidence, especially because I was thus spared the $6 admission fee. Having seen it, though, I would have probably paid it anyway. Great material, excellent presentation. the reservoir was a much cooler thing than you might imagine, although it worries me that it’s completely open to the world.

 

The only down sides to the visit were the unbelievable heat (SF tends to make one a bit of a weather wimp) and the fact that I was unable to connect with Gary or with Shane.

 

Random observations on Kansas City:

This is where I more or less started feeling like I was in the south again, despite the fact that it’s really in the midwest. The attitudes were similar, the accents were familiar. The bar scene was a mirror image of North Carolina, in that it seems very pervasive to the local “gay culture” (quotation marks directed at the term, not at Kansas City).

This was also the first place I began to see the urban blight and decay which seems to be hitting many midwestern cities very hard. A pattern of inner city abandonment and a lack of many “successfully” revitalized (read: “gentrified”) areas was a pattern which would become even more evident in St. Louis and Detroit. The abundant supply of land seems to make it easier simply to abandon the old and move outward rather than repair the perfectly usable buildings which already exist, and it’s a trend which seems even more pronounced in the midwest than on the coasts. Look for a separate piece on this soon.

Another odd midwestern pattern I first noticed around Kansas City: the practice of soliciting employment applications through radio ads, which even mention hourly pay rates for places like McDonald’s, etc. It seems usually to be low-status jobs who advertise this way. I’m not sure if it’s due to a low unemployment rate or a high one.

 

As Bernie mentioned, Kansas City has elevated the concept of “white trash” to an art form. I kinda liked it…

 

As promised, I slept through Denver and saw almost none of it save for the inside of a car wash and a drive down the Colfax Avenue strip (old US 40) on the way out of town. There was also breakfast and a thrift store moment, as well as my first Waffle House sighting of the trip, albeit too late for breakfast. On the down side, Denver provided the first functional spotting of a Hardee’s as well, although I did run across one in Salt Lake which had closed, no doubt to the delight of anyone who ever ate there.

One hundred sixty miles of Colorado farmland proved none too exciting. And then came Kansas…

 

It’s actually not such an awful drive, I guess. It’s just so damned LONG. Over 400 miles of minimal variation in scenery and many, many small towns. I was very excited when the first Stuckey’s appeared 35 miles in, right as I crossed into the Central Time Zone. A complete chicken-fried steak dinner for only $2.99 (and an ashtray on the table) almost made up for the fact that there were no extra large Stuckey’s T-shirts to be had.

Ever onward, yer humble host and the little car that could trudged forth into the heartland, through Colby and Hays and Salina and Russell, and eventually through the strip mall formerly known as Topeka, at speeds which rarely fell below 75, and with the air conditioner set on sub-arctic.

 

Finally, at 10:30, I arrived in the Missouri side of Kansas City and found my way to Country Club Plaza, where Bernie, my host for this part of the tour, manages an espresso bar (which is mercifully NOT a Starbuck’s). I sense good things about this trip to KC; tonight’s quick drive into the city more or less erased my five-year-old memory of Kansas City being completely creepy. Who knows what a little more time might do….