Thursday, June 9
Took off closer to 7:00 PM than 6:00 as I had intended. Somewhere between Rocheport and Boonville I realized I'd forgotten my backpacker guitar. I was a little more upset about it than I should've been, and I knew it. Realistically speaking, it wasn't going to get played. It wasn't really why I was going to Colorado. I'd had these fantasies, of course, about playing it by the camp fire maybe my first couple of nights. But I wear myself out up there, and generally go to bed when it gets dark.
Three hours after I left, somewhere around Topeka as it was getting dark, I noticed lots of thunderstorm activity especially to the northwest.
Going through the flint hills, I made a mental note that, at least on I-70 -- Missouri is flatter than Kansas. There's one place I can think of on I-70 in Missouri where you have maybe a 300 foot difference between hilltop and valley-bottom, and there is actually quite a bit of that in the flint and black hills of Kansas.
People say Kansas is flat, ugly, and boring. I, for one, find it envigorating -- all that vast, open space, and you can see so far in to it. I'm in the middle of "Dances With Wolves" country. I think it's beautiful.
It is long, however, and the plan tonight is to stop at a truckstop near Russell, KS and zonk out in the parking lot. I pull in around 12:40 am and put the window shades up all around the car, put on some David and Steve Gordon (Zen Garden) music quietly on the MP3 player through the car stereo, and kick the seat back. Kick my shoes off, and pull out the pillow I brought with me.
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