Urban Tour

Take a stroll two miles north of our house, and you'll find yourself wandering around the Spanish architecture of the Country Club Plaza, with its array of high-end stores, restaurants and bars, its fountains and and statues, and the occasional art fair.  Along the way, you can enjoy the distinctive neighborhoods and numerous parks, and see young families, old couples and joggers and bikers of all ages out amongst the streets.

Walk two miles east or northeast, and you'll find yourself in the midst of the killing fields of the most murderous neighborhoods in Kansas City, the 11th most violent city in the country.  It was here I decided to visit today.

I had a couple hours of nothing to do.  The weather was unseasonably warm for the first week of January, so I decided to get out on my motorcycle and go for a ride.  With no plans, but not enough time to go for a nice trip out into the rural areas, I went on a sightseeing tour instead.  I hit most of these areas along the way, taking in the contradiction between some of the most fascinating and beautiful architecture in the city, sitting amongst the evidence of hard lives lived, and being lived.

I didn't have any intention of taking pictures when I left, so I had nothing more than my cell phone camera with me, and I mostly just soaked it all in rather than try to document it.  I traveled the length of The Paseo, Troost and Prospect, and many of the random side streets, from Brookside to Independence Avenue.   I was impressed at some of the architecture that exists in some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city, and simultaneously saddened by the amount of houses and buildings that were literally boarded up, bombed out or inhabited but falling down.

Plenty of commentary has already been made about the political, social and economic causes and effects of this, and there's no enlightenment I can add, I was simply struck by what the city was once, what it could have been, and what it was now.

Holy Name Church, 23d and Benton.  It was built in 1925 for $175,000.

Just south of the Jazz District a few blocks.  From a June 1897 issue of the Kansas City Times:  "Out at Twentieth and Vine streets there is, being erected a castle-like stone building which is unlike everything else that Kansas City possesses. As the walls go up inch by inch passers-by regard the structure with increasing interest and in some instances considerable wonderment.

The building is, in plain, prosy truth, intended for Kansas City’s work-house. Here the vagrant and the petty criminal will be sent to work out their sentences. From this feudal-looking place the prisoner will be led to the rock pile twice a day in a most unromantic manner to demolish the limestone owned by the city. It will be Kansas City’s bastile. In it will be continued the “King of the Patch” or the “King of Little Italy,” and their subjects when they become unruly or conspire “against the peace and dignity” of the community.

Why should a work-house be built to resemble a feudal castle? There appears to be no reason for the style of architecture employed except that the building will certainly be substantial, constructed in that fashion, and that it might as well look like a feudal castle as an ordinary jail, if it costs no more. The suggestion was made by Major Alf Brant, work-house superintendent and the designs, drawn by City Architect Hogg, conform to Major Brant’s idea."

 

Same area.  I started to walk around it, when I saw a bunch of people hanging out nearby giving me odd looks.  In the grass, I found a penny dated 1955.  

Western Baptist Bible College building at 21st & Tracy - first occupied by the college circa 1930.

Downtown KC from West Paseo and 25th St.

Elmwood Cemetery at Van Brundt and Truman Rd.

Ready

We've been busy lately, trying to get ready for a few weeks away from work, and a few weeks of single-parenting.  Since our summer plans came to an end, we've both been getting edgy and anxious, simultaneously wanting to get this event behind us, and not wanting to face it.  Mandy described me as not being "present".  She was right.  I was a million miles away.

As I put the finishing touches on work on Tuesday, and drove to meet Mandy out on an impromptu date, I realized I felt more relaxed than I had been in weeks.  With getting the to-do list done as best I could, and the inevitability of what was next, I was now just along for the ride.  We had a great time out, and talked about the next few days.  We're pretty ready at this point.

This morning, I got up early and went for a ride. I left the house about 5:00 AM and headed north, with no particular destination in mind.  I don't usually ride much in the dark anymore, but I enjoyed it.  I like the lit-up skyline profile of downtown Kansas City, and seeing the stars once the city lights dim and you're in the country.  I ended up in Kearney, where I grew up, and drove by places where many of my early memories were created.

I headed back home to enjoy a day off with the boys, stopping to watch the sunrise from the riverfront.  Only Elliot was up when I got home, so I sat and played "cars" with him - he likes to crash these two cars together over and over - until Noah got up.  I made pancakes for the boys while Mandy went for a run.  They wanted to go to the park afterwards, so that's what we did.

It was hot, but Noah insisted on playing tag and hide-and-seek, and swinging in the sun.  We brought food for a picnic.  I was on a clear-liquid diet, which is about as fun as eating grass.  I've had a jello cup, a couple of popsicles, some chicken broth, and one of the powder packet from a pack of ramen noodles. I must eat out of boredom a lot, because I kept catching myself opening the refrigerator looking for something to eat before remembering I couldn't.

It was pretty relaxed day, and we had fun with the boys.  Noah asked me a few more questions about going to the doctor, and told me he would bring me an entire box of popsicles.  All on his own, he made me a hand-lettered card that said "I HOPE YOU FEEL BETTER.  NOAH".  He asked me whether I wanted it at the hospital or at home.  I said, "home".  He told me "No, I'm going to tape it to your bedroom wall".

They're now in bed, and we're waiting for tomorrow.  See you in a little while.

Sunrise on the Missouri River.  No one was around, so I just drove up the sidewalks near the riverfront and sat for awhile.

Sliding at the park

Playing tag

Riding bikes

Noah hauling ass around the playground.  Not sure why he wasn't wearing his helmet

Sweating like pigs, but having fun.

Trying to get a good picture with both boys is, in fact, impossible. But we tried.

Random

Noah trying to convince me that we need to go get ice cream.

Easy rider.  He loves to "ride". 

Spinning at the park

He'll do this all day long, but gets a little nervous in trees.

Memorial Day Weekend - the final chapter...

The next morning, we hung around the hotel trying to decide which way to go, and finally took off on 43 going south.  The weather was fairly cool when we left, but the forecast promised heat.  It wasn’t long before we got to a landslide on one of the steep, winding roads, half the road now resting down the hillside.  I’m glad not to have been the first person to come across this.  Arkansas has gotten a tremendous amount of rain this spring, with severe flooding in some places and damage like this in others.  We would come upon two more landslides that day.  

The hotel we stayed at in Harrison.

And it wasn’t just rain.  Like the storms that rolled through Joplin, this part of Arkansas has also seen several tornadoes, and a couple days before our visit, one destroyed the town of Denning.  We rolled by several areas where downed trees and powerlines, and in a few places, roofs and entire homes, showed the consequences of these powerful storms.  It would be scary enough to see one come across the relatively flat plains, but to have one touch down in one of the many deep valleys of the Ozark Mountains would be really frightening. 

We made our way slowly south, taking a break at the Fallsville One Stop, which is nearly an accurate description of both the town, and the store.  The proprietor of the store counts homemade sandwiches and fruit smoothies among his offerings, but I wasn’t brave enough to try either.  Due to the tornadoes and severe weather, they had been living without power for a week, and didn’t seem phased in the least.  They described some of the areas that had been hit by tornadoes recently, along our intended route.

Dude, it's a nice touch, but you're going to need more flowers.  Way, way more flowers.  I think the toilet paper in the beef jerky canister is a pretty wise idea.  This place doesn't strike me as waterproof.

The facilities

Looking past the cliche hound dog (Lila) lying next to the highway, there was an old building that looked uninhabitable, yet was clearly habited by a couple of people sitting on the front “porch”.  I asked what it was, and he told me it had been a cannery, a boarding house, and a milking barn.  Apparently now it was a residence.  One-Stop-guy put the age of the place at around 90 years. 

We left there, and went south through the Ozark National Forest, encountering more tornado damage along the way.  We got to the outskirts of Denning, and decided to swing by, but the highway patrol had closed off entrance to the town for obvious reasons.  We headed on to Mount Magazine, a state park that at 2,700 feet (approx) is the highest point in Arkansas.  We stopped at the lodge on top and had lunch, overlooking the hazy valley below.  By the time we finished lunch, it was nearly 3:30, and we had a long way to go to our planned stop for the night, Gaston’s Resort, on the White River just down from Bull Shoals Dam.  

Motorcycle time is unlike car time, especially in a group.  No matter how hard you try, the going always seems to be slower.  You stop to stretch, to see something, to get gas, check the map, etc.  At one point, I got out ahead of Keith and Jeff, and enjoyed the solitude of the winding, virtually traffic-free roads for awhile.  I stopped briefly at a river-rafting outfitter (Wild Bill’s), and tried to text them where I was.  After 15 minutes of waiting, I took off again for Yellville, hoping to get on into Mountain Home, and then to Gaston’s.

Just outside of Yellville the road was closed due to a fatality accident, and after waiting about half an hour with no assurances it would be open any time soon, I studied the map to find an alternate route and turned around.  I passed Jeff and Keith on the way back to town, and after a brief discussion, we all agreed to take it.  We’d been 350 miles that day, and were 20 miles from our destination.  It was nearly 8:30, getting dusky, and past the time we usually like to ride.  Keith noticed Jeff pull off to the side of the road, which wasn’t that unusual (we all stop to adjust things, get a drink, etc, but he always catches up), so we kept going another 4-5 miles to the turnoff to where we were headed next.  We waited for him for a few minutes longer than normal, when he called to tell us he had been hit by a deer. 

After we rolled up, we found out that a deer hit Jeff broadside on his motorcycle, breaking his left tibia, and causing his left leg to be sucked under the motorcycle, where the passenger footpeg tore a hole in his foot.  It was a freak accident, and he said he only noticed the deer when it was right beside him. The deer hit hit his leg square on, and he felt it break immediately.  

Not the one that hit him. This is a picture of a picture of an elk. 

He somehow managed to stop the bike on the side of the road without crashing, but couldn't put the kickstand down because his left leg was broken.  He was hunched over the tank, in pain and trying to figure out how to get off the bike without it falling over on his broken leg, or breaking his good leg.  After a couple of minutes, another biker - the pastor of a local Assembly of God church - and his wife pulled over to check on him, thinking he was having a heart attack on the side of the  road and helped him off.  

Fortunately, he got hit only a mile or so from the Summit volunteer EMS/fire department and they, along with the Sheriff’s department and the ambulance, were already on the scene by the time we got back. They got his pants cut off and the blood stopped, while everyone was asking what seemed like a million questions about him, his bike, insurance, and what happened.  It wasn’t a funny situation, but I laughed when we were discussing how to get the bike back to Missouri when Jeff, still lying on the ground, said, “I think I can ride it back once they set the leg.”

He was finally taken to Baxter Regional Hospital in Mountain Home.  Keith rode his bike to the Summit fire station, where they let us park his bike behind some 1950's-era fire truck until it could be retrieved.   I dropped Keith back off at his bike, and we rode on to Mountain Home, extra cautiously, where we hung out with Jeff in the ER until they got his x-rays back and a temporary splint on.  We finally went back to the hotel around midnight, and Jeff got a permanent room about four hours later.  The doctor told him they had three deer/auto strikes a day down in that area, but this was the first they’d heard of a deer/motorcycle strike without the rider crashing the bike.  

The next morning, Jeff nonchalantly called to say he was going into surgery in about five minutes, so Keith and I rode up to Bull Shoals while we waited for him to get out.  With all the rainfall, it had peaked at its highest level ever only two days before, and they had opened the floodgates on the dam for only the third time since it was built in 1951.  

You don't say...

We rode back to the hospital, waited for Jeff to get out of recovery, and talked to him for a while once he did.  He was the proud owner of a bionic leg, with a titanium rod from knee to ankle.  I doubt he remembered anything from that day.  I decided to head back to Kansas City, while Keith stayed behind with Jeff until his wife got there the following day.  

I left around 2:30, and took some great roads back.  I was surprised to find very little traffic on the route I took through the Ozark National Forest.  It was a peaceful ride, and I kept up a pretty steady pace, stopping once for gas, and once in some town I can’t recall whose entire population seemed to be playing in the river that ran through it.

Water's a little high

I stopped for a break in Clinton, and decided that given the lack of sleep from the night before, this was enough for the night.  I called Mandy from the hotel, and told her I would be home the next morning and fell asleep shortly afterwards. I woke up very late, especially for me.  When I finally got back to KC, I went straight to the park where Mandy and the boys were playing, and managed to play a game of tag in my boots and jeans, in the hot, humid morning.

Memorial Day Weekend - day 1

When I take a trip, I always have this anticipation that doesn’t let me sleep.  It’s Memorial Day Weekend, and unlike years past, where we’ve gone to the farm in Callao as a family, this year I’m on a weekend motorcycle trip thanks to Mandy.  There are a couple other stories I’ll post later how I came to have another motorcycle, and how I got Mandy to allow me this, but for now, on to the trip.  

I wait around for a little bit to see if Mandy will come downstairs before I leave.  Finally about 6:00 AM I leave her a note instead, and a picture/letter for Noah to hang above his bed; something I do whenever I leave town.  I pack up, head off to QT to gas up and talk for a few minutes to the cops that are getting coffee.  It’s been a long night for them, and it’s not even the weekend yet.  They are also splitting time on duty down in Joplin, so it’s been a busy week.  

It’s clear and a little cool, about 50 degrees, as I head out of town.  Traffic is light, and once I get to Harrisonville and head east on more rural roads, I relax a little and enjoy the rolling landscape, the cows and the crops.  My mind is initially full of lots of things, as it usually is when I go riding, as if it’s trying to find the right thing to think about at length.  I think about Mandy and the boys, sorry that I missed seeing them wake up, but glad for a peaceful morning. It’s so traffic-free, that I pass a farmhouse with about 8-10 dogs laying in their driveway and the road. Maybe this is the country-equivalent of the cat lady?

By the time I get to Clinton, I’m cold to the bone.  The cafe I was supposed to meet someone at is gone, so it’s time for plan B.  I wait outside the gas station, warming up with coffee, before I spy a clear local and ask where the best place to get breakfast is.  He tells me, and I text my change of plans to Jeff, who’s running late.

I walk in, and it’s clearly a place the locals like to go. There are dozen conversations going on, across the tables and across the restaurant, lots of laughing and teasing going on.  Mostly older couples, and groups of old men wearing ball caps advertising fertilizer, tractors or some other farm implement.  Perfect. The waitress/hostess tells me the breakfast special - an 8oz ribeye, eggs, and half a dozen other things I couldn’t possibly eat all of.  She tells me I can sit anywhere I like and says “You can sit in the smoking section, or the non-smoking section” and even after she points out to me which is which, I can’t tell.  I look around the smoke-filled cafe, and see a waist-high wall that I guess must be what barely delineates one from the other, when a group from the smoking section walks through the non-smoking section to pay their bill, with cigarettes ablaze. Normally this would bother me, but not today.  Jeff finally makes it, we eat a heartier-than-usual breakfast.  Oatmeal may have been on the menu, but it didn’t stand out.

After breakfast, we continued to head south on 13, and down through Stockton Lake.  It was still cool, but the sun was out warming things up.  One of the things I love about riding through the rural countryside, besides the peace and natural beauty of it, is the unexpected things that you run across almost constantly. A two-story totem pole here, a sculpted metal-art mailbox there, a front yard full of chickens, goats and cows, with a child’s playground in the middle.  I’m not sure who the fence was for.  I ride past a house with an old marquee sign in the front yard, with black plastic letters advertising “For Sale.  Eggs. Road Grader”.  Another with a large piece of plywood, propped up by a trash can, that is blue spray-painted with “For sale  $6”  on it.  I think, “but you painted on it...” while I ponder whether it’s the trash can or the plywood that’s for sale, or if someone already took off with the six dollar item in question.  These folks would probably shit their pants with joy if they discovered craigslist.

We're never lost, just not always sure where we're going next. Trying to find a detour around a road closure.

I know where we're not

I guess they were right about that "road closed" sign

Due to the ominous looking sky, Jeff and I stopped in Greenfield to put on our rain gear, and just in time. As we took off again, it started pouring, and several miles away from shelter we found ourselves in the middle of a huge lightning storm.  Lightning was striking everywhere, and it was close enough that the sounds of thunder were immediate.  Riding behind Jeff, I saw him jump on his bike - as did I - as a huge bolt of lightning hit off to our left. It was one of those massive bolts, thick, bright and went on for seconds - a finger of electricity perfectly vertical from heaven to the ground.

Storm comin'...

We rode on a little further, with nowhere to hide.  At one point, I noticed five huge fingers of lightning strike all at once, directly ahead of us.  Our odds seemed to be getting slimmer when we rolled into Avilla, and Jeff spotted an old abandoned feed store, with a covered loading dock area. We spun around and got underneath, as the skies continued to pour.  

About a block away we spotted a bar that we weren’t quite sure if it too wasn’t abandoned, given all the abandoned buildings around it.   I thought we would either find ourselves in trouble, or it could be a nice place to ride the storm out.  In one of the brief respites from the rain, we hurried over to it with lightning hitting all around, and went in.  It was dark, but dry and warm.  It had just a few, a pool table and the bar came complete with the cliche regular sitting at the bar and the sexual-objectification-of-women beer poster proudly on the fridge (not a “cooler”, a real refridgerator).  I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they had food for sale.  Soon after we sat down and ordered a couple of burgers, marble-sized hail started hitting the ground outside.  It would have been hugely painful if we were still riding.  A few minutes later, the concrete floor of the bar started flooding - apparently it does this once in a while.  

Watching the marble-sized hail pour down, shortly before water started coming in the door.

The bar/grill looks like someone's kitchen

Sky still looks sketchy as we leave, but at least it's not hailing or lightning-ing. 

There was a guy behind us who worked in Joplin, and we talked about the tornado that hit last Sunday.  Since we were only about 15 miles away, we decided to swing by and see it first-hand. He gave us directions on a way to get in to town, avoiding the traffic.  As we came in to Joplin on I-44, there was a massive, tattered American flag flying at half-mast.  The condition of the flag itself seemed to lend evidence to the violence that had gone on that day.  

We took the directions the man gave us, and it popped us out right on top of the St. John’s hospital area.  All the cliche superlatives that people seem to say in disasters spring to mind, but none do it justice.  The devastation is total, and it is hard for the mind to wrap around what power it must have taken to even move some of the objects we’re looking at, much less destroy them completely.  How 30% of the town was even able to take adequate shelter is beyond comprehension.  Even basements wouldn’t have been enough in many of the houses we’re looking at.  

I'm not sure where he came from, but in the middle of all this, a young boy came riding through very slowly, just staring at the damage. I'm sure this storm will leave an imprint on him for the rest of his life. 

After a while, we got back on the road, and headed back to our intended route.  We took some fun, curvy roads that took us down through Table Rock Lake.  It was getting late now, so I stopped to call the kids before it got into their bedtime.  Noah told me he missed me, and wanted me to come home.  This is always the hardest part of any trip away.  I hang up, and Elliot calls me back a few minutes later to tell me how his day went. Thankfully, Mandy sounds pretty good too, even though I know these two are a handful alone.  

Great place for a call home.

We finally roll into the Holiday Inn Express in Harrison, AR about 8:30 and meet with Keith, who rode straight down in one long push this afternoon.  It’s been a long day; over 14 hours since I left this morning, and 415 miles ago.  Bed will feel good tonight.  We grab a late dinner at Colton’s Steak house.  I don’t think I’ve had a worse day, diet-wise, than what I’ve had today.  It was all good though.  With no particular plan of action, we’ll figure out where we want to go tomorrow, tomorrow.