I spent the long weekend that we had travelling to the heartland of America. Over a three day period (more like 58 hours), my friend Jane and I drove from Memphis to Des Moines, Iowa to Omaha, Nebraska to Lawrence, Kansas and, finally, back to Memphis. That’s a total of 1650 miles friends. Why? Just because. I got to go to some new places and take a lot of photographs.
We stopped in Winterset, Iowa. Some might know Winterset as the birthplace of John Wayne. I’ll remember it for the friendly cows, cute town square and all of the covered bridges. “The Bridges of Madison County” (Clint Eastwood’s foray into the romance genre of movies) was based on and filmed in this quaint little town in Iowa.
We left Iowa for Omaha, Nebraska. We didn’t make it too far into Nebraska, but did stop to take pictures at Rosenblatt Stadium (home of the College World Series) and Little King sub shop. We left Nebraska on Sunday afternoon headed for Kansas City. Driving South, we saw a great sunset and left the road to chase the sunset on some rural roads.
Kansas City was a lot bigger than I imagined. I really enjoyed the Plaza area of Downtown. We stopped at the 810 Zone to watch the end of the Steelers/Ravens football game before finding a place to try some Kansas City BBQ. Gates BBQ was one of the most friendly restaurants that I’ve been to in a long time. And, it was good. I think I still favor the NC kind of BBQ, but I’m learning to appreciate the differences.
We stayed in Lawrence, Kansas, in an attempt to face our tormentor…the Jayhawks. See, I’m a UNC Tarheel fan and Jane’s a Memphis Tigers fans. Kansas broke both of our hearts last year on their way to the national basketball championship. So, we rode to the campus, looked around and said our farewells to Kansas. We took the backway to Memphis, driving through Columbia (stopping at the University of Missouri) and then going through great towns like Freeburg and Licking. We rolled back onto campus around 6:50 pm last night. And, all in all, I would say that it was a great trip.
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