On the Road: Manhattan, Kansas to Hannibal, Missouri (Summer 2009)

I left Manhattan, Kansas late in the morning and headed for Kansas City (I learned that Manhattan was founded by abolitionists from the East Coast--hence the name). The scenery on the interstate was not much to look at. Got off a couple of times to look around, once at Alma, which was a tiny town, interesting for its old stone buildings made from the local limestone. Later I stopped at a winery, that turned out to be making mostly elderberry wine. I searched in vain for a place making vinifera (true wine grape) wines from locally grown grapes.

I went through Topeka, to Kansas City. I wanted to see the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, but it was closed. My father remembers this museum from his youth, as it is right around the corner from the high school he attended, Rockport High School, which I had a quick look at. Decided to move on to St. Louis but then reconsidered and diverted north to Hannibal by way of Highways 54, 19, and 61.

A big chunk of work has just come in, so I may stay here in Hannibal a second night, as I will have to do this and get it off to Tokyo as my top priority for tomorrow. When I can, I will head down the Mississippi on Highway 79 to St. Louis before heading further east.

On the Road: Ogallala, Nebraska to Manhattan, Kansas

Left Ogallala, headed east later than I had intended and made slow progress at first. Stopped at Sutherland Reservoir, but saw nothing of interest, except cliff swallows nesting under a bridge over the Platte River. Much of my route today followed the river, which runs in numerous shallow channels. The road crosses and recrosses many forks.

In North Platte, stopped at the Golden Spike Tower, which is an observation tower Union Pacific has constructed for tourists. It allows a bird's-eye view of the Bailey Classification Yard, the largest rail switching and classification yard in the world, so they say. Frankly, it wasn't much to look at, but interesting enough that I don't regret the detour (see photo).

Much of the rail traffic here seems to be coal trains bringing coal down from the area around Casper, Wyoming. They get routed here, mostly to power plants in the east, in places like Cincinnati, and Boston, and New York, and Washington. For the past two days I've been seeing the trains everywhere, some of them with as many as 200 cars.

Last night, coming into Ogallala from Scottsbluff, the road ran parallel to the North Platte River and more or less to the rail lines. I happened to start on the road just as the sun was going down. In the rear-view mirror, it was no longer visible, but light was coursing over the horizon, as various objects in the landscape were still catching the last glow. One of the coal trains appeared ahead of me at a point where the track was at a slight angle to the road. The coal cars are typically polished aluminum (or so they appear to be) with vertical, beveled ribs. Each car was neatly mounded with coal. The cars look like hundreds of perfect, but perfectly burned pound cakes in baking tins. The ribs on the cars began to catch the pink light and the whole train was lit up as if with hundreds of neon tubes standing on end--actually the bevels of the ribs reflecting the last pink rays of the sun at me. It was rather extraordinary. It lasted only about seven minutes. The first minute or two I wasn't able to understand what I was seeing. It reminded me of the gaudy neon lights at the casinos in Reno.