ktravula – a travelogue!

Meeting Sarah Palin & Other Stories

It is actually a small country, if one considers the fact that in just the two nights that we spent in Kansas city a fewspecial celebrities of the American space decided to show up there as well. First there was the famous college basketball finals game between Mizzou (Columbia University, Missouri) and the Jayhawks (of the University of Kansas). The event brought much of the midwestern lovers of college basketball to Kansas City where the event took place, and they remained there till the next day when Mizzou won. On Saturday was Usher Raymond the musician who on a nationwide tour. Yesterday afternoon, there was news of perhaps the biggest fish of the weekend: former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin. She was in town to promote her new book America By Heart.

The town of Andover in Wichita, Kansas, where she was visiting was two and a half hours away, westwards. We didn’t go there to see her as we had first planned, but that was only because of the constraints of time. By Saturday night, about a hundred people had already arrived to stay the night out in the cold in front of the store where she was billed to sign books on Sunday, and the line to see her stretched eventually to about 500 people. Even if we had set out early on Sunday, we might not have stood much chance of seeing her and getting back home on time. We went to Independence (MO) instead on the way home to visit the President Harry Truman home, museum and Presidential Library. That turned out to be a good decision. We learnt about his life and his love for his old country home even when he was president and how people would always gather in front of his home every time he returned from Washington. President Truman was the successor to Franklin Roosevelt, and he was the one who ended the Second World War after dropping the bombs on Japan.

In the last three days, I learnt more about the World War I and it’s implications for World War II and other future conflicts than I’ve ever learnt from reading books or from conversations. It was a holiday well spent.

Barbecue Kansas!

Twenty-four hours ago, all I knew about barbecue was how it tasted when hot. Two hours ago, I had a memorable encounter with the best barbecue in the world, along with a history lesson that was already waiting to be discovered since we hit the road on Friday morning. Kansas City is the barbecue capital of the world! How this fact managed to elude most of the people we had spoken to before embarking on this trip I may never know, but every conversation since yesterday to folks has pointed only to one fact: if anything, the barbecue in Kansas City is a must-eat. I now know what they mean.

The barbecue tradition in Kansas City goes as far back as the 1900s and it is regarded as the “world’s barbeue capital”. According to Wikipedia the city has over 100 barbecue restaurants. Even the google search of the word “barbecue” will come up with Kansas City in the first four items. There’s even a Kansas City Barbecue Society. That’s serious! Now, of all the over a hundred places to have barbecue, the most famous one of them according to all asked is called “Oklahoma Joe’s”, written in the Men’s Health magazine in March 2010 as the #13 on the “13 places to eat before you die.” And that was where we went, of course. It is far better to have just twelve more places in the world to worry about.

Since Kansas City is the barbecue capital of the world, imagine eating at the best barbecue place in Kansas City. That’s what Oklahoma Joe’s is to those who know its reputation. From the outside though, it looks just like a little harmless restaurant in a gas station. We had actually been there last night without being able to find our way in because of the way it blended with the night. Today there was no such luck as the line that reached from outside to the front counter had up to seventy people and took almost thirty minutes to get us served. White, Black, Asian, Mexican and people of different looks and appearances queued up in the cold outside the restaurant to await their turn. It was almost like being in a line to get the autograph of a famous writer.

I’ve never been in a restaurant before that makes you wait that long. (Well, Mama Ope food canteen in Ibadan is the exception). But you know what they say: if you see a very long line of people outside a restaurant, it would most likely be good. Believe me when I say it was more than awesome culinary experience eating there. The real question is why people on the other side of the river didn’t know much about this, and the many more treasures it contains. And I’ve not even told you about the most amazing experience at the World War I Museum.

Well tomorrow, we return home, via Columbia.

More Photos from Fulton

At the Churchill Museum on the campus of Westminster College featuring Hitler, posters, replicas of trenches, and the famous table of the Prime Minister…

At Westminster College, Fulton

These are a few photos from the College that hosts the Winston Churchill Memorial and Museum (Churchill is perhaps the only British Prime Minister with a Memorial and Museum in the United States). I’m going to put the other photos from the Museum on Picasa whenever I can.

Along with short films, photos, and some other artifacts that tie this college to Winston Churchill, we also saw a replica of the Berlin Wall which the Prime Minister had referenced in his “Iron Curtain” speech. The “wall” had striking similarities to the real one, and had graffitis and other paintings on it.

At the time of the speech at Westminster in 1946, Churchill had seen far ahead of his many peers as it regards the ambition of the Soviet Union, but it would take years for the rest of the world to catch up.

On Miles Of Open Road

It didn’t promise to be easy, so it wasn’t. It even took taking turns moving the Nissan beast across the stretch of tar from one end of the state to the other, but we did make it here in one piece. “Here” is Kansas City – a city that stretches across two state boundaries. (It didn’t make much sense at first that Missouri would have two big cities on the two ends of its stretch from east to west). The part of the city that is replicated after much of Rome and Paris is on the Missouri side of the state line while the other side that gets the “What the hell are you looking for out there” is in the state of Kansas from where I’m typing this, my back against the soft sheets of a cozy but affordable hotel bedroom. One good thing about being in a remote part of the country is the affordability of the hotel rooms. Now that’s it…

NOT!

We did stop by at the Westminster College at Fulton (MO) to see the spot where Winston Churchill delivered his “Iron Curtain” speech. It was such a delight. More than just a private college, the campus bears many markers to the prominence of Churchill’s 1946 visit to the place. A larger than life sized casting of the man stands at the back of the Westminster church (pictured above with three of my c0-travellers). There is an enormous collection of pictures, videos, short films and documentaries, and artifacts in the Churchill museum (even though, now that I think about it, I doubt that it was called the “Churchill museum”). It all put the progress of the world from the First World War to the Second one, and later to the Cold War, into perspective, especially from the role of Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Truman, and Hitler. It was such an awesome place to see. After taking plenty pictures, we took off and headed off to Kansas City. Later today, we’ll complement our knowledge at the World War I memorial in the city.

The other parts of the evening that include dancing cowgirls, drunk young men, delicious fries and cole slaw, cool drinks, warm patios, unexpected faces from Edwardsville, music, dance and laughter will remain impossible to adequately express so I won’t even try. Not tonight at least with sleep bags under my eyes. I’ll just go to bed. Thank you for reading my rants. The daily stats on the blog has always amazed me.

Greetings from flyover country, halfway across the land.

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