Americana Travels,
Pt 10: Kansas City to Springfield
May 21th, 2012 – They say it’s my birthday . . .
is it your birthday, too?
That’s pretty much
the first thing I hear on this day every year. Mrs. Pope’s birthday usually
brings with it a bunch of festivities, elves dancing and singing in squeaky harmony,
fuzzy inanimate animals will come to life and join in the chorus, and there is
peace on earth. Or . . . something like that.
However, this year started off a little different. I got up
from a horrid night’s sleep and took a shower, only to find that I was standing
under the spray of merely lukewarm water, at best. It seemed to get a bit
warmer as the shower went on, or maybe I was just getting used to looking like
a freshly plucked chicken. I shivered myself into my clothing and finished
packing. Mrs. Pope, however, had no luck at all with the shower. It was colder water
yet, and she hit the high points and moved on. Happy birthday!
Turns out the water was out in the entire building and
Marriott management went ahead and comped us the equivalent of a free nights
stay. Eh . . . it works. Woulda’ liked to see them throw in a basket of maple
chews as well, but I’ll take what we can get.
We left the hotel a little after noon and marked the map
with a big fat juicy red circle . . . Springfield, Missouri, we’re coming for
you! But before we actually hit the open road for the little town nestled in
the Ozarks of Missouri, we had to get some coffee from a place in southern
Kansas City that claimed to have gluten-free edible delights. Navigator Jack
was all over the place . . . he took us back across the state line to Kansas,
then we got re-routed back to the Missouri side of things and he proceeded to
take us through the yuppy part of downtown that we had hit the day before.
About forty minutes later, the asinine route we took deposited us at the door
step of One More Cup coffee shop. We ordered a couple of drinks and Mrs. Pope
had two gluten-free donut holes. The drinks were good, but Mrs. Pope was less
than pleased with donut holes . . . Happy birthday, once again.
The one thing that Mrs. Pope had requested for her birthday
was to eat soul food or southern food, the definition didn’t need to be exact,
but there had to be collard greens and peach cobbler in the future. Well, she
had researched a little place in the town of Lee’s Summit, which was only a few
miles south east of Kansas City, and basically en route to Springfield. After
driving for about twenty minutes, we pulled into the parking lot of a huge
strip mall . . . I mean, all of the box stores were there . . . Wal-mart, Best
Buy, Barnes & Noble, and this little soul food joint tucked in the corner.
We pulled up to the building to see a giant construction dumpster parked in front
and a closed sign in the window. Mrs. Pope almost started crying right then and
there. I immediately knew that there was nothing that was going to stop us from
having the desired food for lunch, so I grabbed my phone and started searching out
soul food in the Springfield and Kansas City areas. Screw it . . . we were
going back to Kansas City if we had to.
I called one of the places on Mrs. Pope’s list and talked
with a vibrant lady on the other end of the line. I asked their hours to ensure
that they were open, she said yes and that they closed at five. I confirmed the
address, and then this sweet lady was trying to send us to their sister store
in another part of town . . . . thinking that we were looking to take advantage
of dinner rather than lunch. I asked her why she was trying to send us to
another location . . . I liked her; I wanted to eat lunch with her! She laughed
at the confusion of the whole situation and told us to git our butts down there
for some food, and she’d take care of us. Mrs. Pope and I laughed about the
whole exchange and then drove the seven or eight miles back to Kansas City to
try this place out.
Niecie’s Restaurant was planted in the parking lot of a non-descript
strip mall. We sat down and were immediately welcomed in as part of the family.
We were actually the only folks in the restaurant at that time, though take-out
orders were being placed and picked up while we were there. We ordered up a
couple of drinks affectionately known as Pimp Juice or Fire Lemonade, and mmm
mmmmm. That stuff was tasty! Mrs. Pope had the gravy smothered chicken with
collard greens and cabbage, while I ordered up the catfish fillets. We chatted with
the phone lady and waiter for the entire meal, explaining how all hell had
broken loose and things weren’t working out for Mrs. Pope’s birthday, the
comedy of errors that earmarked this day, and they asked questions like, “What
are y’all doing vacationing in Missouri? What’s wrong with California?” My
short answer to that was, “What’s wrong with Missouri?” Again . . . May is a
lovely time to visit.
Then, Mrs. Pope’s crappy birthday luck reared its ugly head
as we prepared for dessert. She ordered some peach cobbler, assured by all in
the restaurant that it was the best we’ll eat for the rest of our lives
<cough, cough . . . Ken’s Creekside . . . cough> and when our waiter went
back to get the slice of southern goodness, he came back to inform us that
there wasn’t any. Happy birthday, part three. She sullenly settled for
something lemon, but it paled in comparison to everything that we had just eaten
and the expectation that had built so feverishly within our bellies. But, in
the end, this meal was fantastic in that it wasn’t just the food that took us
to heaven, but the people that we got to share that hour with were down to
earth, honest to goodness hard working folk . . . a small sampling of that
southern kindness that we keep hearing about. It was awesome and I look forward
to going back simply to spend time with those nice people.
We piled back into Harmony at some hour, hell . . . I
stopped looking at the clock knowing that we were going to pull into
Springfield late. We headed south on the 71, watching the miles fly by. About a
half hour into the trek south, we started seeing roadside signs making mention
of pecan farms and markets that would sell pecan tastiness. After pulling into
one shop that was closed due to construction or poor economy, or both, we came
to our first oddity site of the day. This one was in the town of Rich Hill and
in the middle of their town was a giant Coal Shovel. Now, I was expecting to
see something that looked like a snow shovel, y’know, a recognizable image, but
no . . . no, this was a shovel in the sense of something that was attached to a
crane or some other heavy machinery to pickup bucket loads of coal in short
amounts of time. I thought the information board made mention of this bucket
picking up seven hundred cubic tons? I don’t remember the exact numbers, but it
was a lot and if you look at the picture and try to imagine how many Mrs. Pope’s
will fit in the World’s Largest Coal Shovel, you’ll get a better understanding
of how massive this thing was.
As we were walking through this little park that also had a
train car in it, we noticed a horse drawn buggy making its way up the main
street. I was stunned, amazed, and every other adjective that works with
gleeful disposition . . . it was an Amish family running some community
errands, or at least, that was my assumption. We found out later that there is
a Amish community tucked away on the outskirts of the town, and there were
quite a few Amish communities scattered throughout Missouri. I’d only ever seen
pictures, some documentary footage, the movie Witness, real distant and out of
touch stuff regarding these folks, but here I was . . . watching the real
action going down right in front of me. Mrs. Pope told me to stop staring . . .
I hadn’t realized I was. I just felt like I was soaking in some Americana
legend that I heard rumor of, but now was actually seeing in the flesh.
We got back on the road and began the search for one last
oddity of the day . . . a giant Morel Mushroom. The thing was reported to be
about thirty feet tall and lit up at night. Right . . . like what mushroom doesn’t
light up at night? We drove down some desolate farm road that was littered with
bullet riddled street signs and massive farm equipment doing donuts in barren fields.
After driving for about five miles, we decided to turn around and continue
towards the hotel. As we got on the freeway, we saw the fungal monstrosity on
the opposite side of the freeway. The dude who gave us the directions left out
a key point to the directions . . . turn down the frontage road was all he had
to write and we would have been right there. Instead, we tried to snap some
photos while we were driving by it. Eh . . . we saw it nonetheless.
A little over an hour later, we were pulling into
Springfield. The sun was going down, but oddly enough, my energy wasn’t tapped.
Despite the long drive and the lack of solid sleep, I was still doing well. I
probably could have gone another hour with no problem. We checked into our room
and were informed at the front desk that we were on the top floor and got a
free upgrade to a two bedroom suite. We could sleep about three hours in every
room and still not spend time in all of the space in this room. I jest, but I’m
serious . . . really, I’m kidding, but you get where I’m going with this. This
suite was huge! And how about that for a birthday present from Marriott?!?
We grabbed a quick bite to eat from an Italian joint that served;
you guessed it, gluten-free pasta. Mrs. Pope had some alfredo sauce with shrimp
and mushrooms, and I had the eggplant. Damn tasty and we were filled. We got
back to the room and started the unwinding process that we do every night. And with
that, I’m tuning out and turning off.
The road beckons!
Pope
Quote of the Day: “From this angle, President Lincoln looks
like Cornelius from The Planet of the Apes.”
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