Missouri - Day 23 - Kansas City & Independence

Kansas City East KOA, Oak Grove

Friday, 23 April 2021

The side door to the cabin came open again, fortunately while we were still in the campground, so I could pull over and try again.  David suggested I tie the door handle to the metal bar just inside the door for use by unathletic people like me who need help climbing into the RV.  I probably should, but I'd need to figure out some way for it not to be a nuisance.  The door's only come open 3 times (I think) while I've been driving - out of all the times I've closed it and it hasn't come open.  I'll keep thinking about it.

today's route

detail in the city

On the road

Missouri's license plates remind me that 2021 is this state's bicentennial.  The exact date is August 10th, and I'm sure the virus will be under enough control that they'll be able to celebrate by then.

Today I drove 90 miles and saw 3 Trump signs/flags.

I don't think I've mentioned anything much before about Missouri's volunteer litter pickup program.  Although I've seen a few saying the crew is from a church or civic group, almost all of them are in memory of one or more people.  Some of them are really personal: e.g. "Don (or Amy or whatever name) We'll love you forever."

Today I saw a sign that said, "In Loving Memory of June, June and Emma."  I'm still not sure about that one but think maybe someone named June died, and the volunteer litter folks are June and Emma.

Then I saw another one that said, "In Loving Memory of Josh Strencer - Ride Free, Brother."

And still another one: "In Loving Memory of Javon Reilly - Forever Will Fly."

Missouri's program is a little different than some other states.  Here, picking up litter is only 1 of 4 options they offer, the other 3 being to mow the adopted area, landscape it, or plant native Missouri wildflowers and grasses.  They have to sign a 3-year agreement, pick up litter at least 4 times a year, and submit an activity report to MODOT.  The litter crews I've seen out didn't look at all like volunteers but instead like people who work for the state.  And there's still plenty of litter out - though picking it up only 4 times a year leaves plenty of time for trash to accumulate.  Other states expect volunteers out once a month.

I passed an eating establishment called "Chicken N Pickle."  I don't know why that struck me as odd, but I'm glad it did because now I've looked it up and know that it's a chain that was started in Kansas City that offers chicken and pickleball.  Apparently it's wildly popular and the food's actually good.

I passed briefly into Kansas City, then crossed the Missouri River, which confused me.  I figured as long as I didn't cross the Missouri River, I'd be staying in the state of Missouri, since the river forms MO's boundary with KS.  What I'd overlooked is that the river forms the state boundary UP TO Kansas City.  At which point the river swings east and the state boundary goes straight south.

Independence

Independence had about 117,000 residents in 2010, and it seemed like at least half of them were out on the roads today.  I'd managed to make it this far without trouble only because I took a great deal of time beforehand being sure I'd know exactly where to exit from exactly which road.  Google doesn't always report the correct name of a street - or at least not the name that's on a street sign.  My route today brought me down MO 45, then MO 9, then somehow onto US 24, followed by an exit for Bess Truman Parkway.  I was skeptical, so I used Google Maps to be sure I knew what all those transitions would look like.  That turned out to be a valuable step, because I knew exactly what the exit signs would say, instead of relying on Google's "turn at the Taco Bell" type of directions.  They can say things like that without ever once mentioning the name of the road you're turning on or by dreaming up names for streets that never heard of that name.  So the traffic was heavy but I found the right roads with no trouble.

It took more than an hour to get to the Bess Truman Parkway, so when I saw we were passing a small park along there, I stopped to let us all take a break.  I found a display describing the conditions in the area in the mid-1800s and the trails that people took when moving west.  Here are a few of them:

I'd never heard of this strategy for buying the freedom of an enslaved family.

And there was this one about a lesser-known facet of railroading:

The Truman House was only a few blocks from this park.

Truman House

Of course, the house was closed, which is just as well because I'm not sure I'd ever have found a parking place.

But this is a pretty house, isn't it?

About 5 blocks away is the National Park Service Visitor Center for all this Truman stuff.  And it was closed - I guess because of the virus.  Too bad, because I'd found a good parking place (probably because nobody else wanted to park there due to closures).

Between the house and the visitor center I found the Jackson County Courthouse, Independence being the county seat.

Jackson County Courthouse,
aka the Truman Courthouse,
in Independence

This was the only angle I could get of the front of the building (on the left).  You can just see, on the right, a statue of Truman, and I've got a close-up of it.

likely shows Truman when he was Presiding Judge of the county,
before he was elected Senator

It turns out that Jackson County has 2 county courthouses, the other being in Kansas City.  In 1926, when Truman was presiding judge, voters adopted a bond issue that included remodeling the courthouse shown above as well as building a new one in Kansas City.

[I've just discovered this new computer is saving JPG files as JFIF, and the photo program in this blog is refusing to touch them.  I've found some complicated directions online for how to fix this, but it's way too much for me to want to tackle right now.  This seems to work okay on my own photos, but it's not letting me download some others.  In this particular case, I wanted to show a photo of the county courthouse in Kansas City that Truman helped design - but if you want to see it, you'll have to look it up for yourself.  It's a 1934 300' tall Art Deco building.]

 

On the corner by the visitor center is a historical marker titled "Second Battle of Independence - October 1864."  This wasn't about what I thought it was about.  The "independence" doesn't refer to the state's independence or the citizens' independence but instead to the town of Independence.  The account on the sign is wildly truncated, but you can read it here if you want.   https://www.hmdb.org/independence  

We've already seen accounts of part of this situation; one that I remember seeing was last year in Kansas at Marais de Cygnes (Marsh of the Swans).  I remember it had snowed that morning and the signs at the visitor center were iced over.  Anyway, there was a fierce battle nearby when this same Confederate commander - Price - was defeated, only to turn around and be defeated at Mine Creek later that same day, and finally ended up running for Texas with what was left of his forces.  So this Second Battle of Independence leader was the same guy.  Not really a military winner, I'd have said.  But I've taken a quick look at his biography and he turns out to be a more complex person than I'd have expected.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Sterling-Price

Driving through Independence, I passed a street named Higashimurayama, which wasn't the sort of name I'd expect in a town like this, so I looked it up.  There's a town in Japan by that name, and the two towns are sister cities.

Kansas City

From there I drove into Kansas City for the sole purpose of finding barbecue.  My first stop was Arthur Bryant's Barbecue.  Of course there are conflicting stories about who started Kansas City BBQ, but one of them is that Arthur's brother Charlie was the first and Arthur took over after his death.  But what matters is that this place is considered one of the best bbq places in town.

When I got there, I saw that it's also a compulsory stop for visiting politicians: I saw photos with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, with John McCain and Sarah Palin, several with Barack Obama - I can't remember them all, but you get the idea.  I can say 2 things to describe this place: 1) there were 4 cops in line ahead of me, along with a real mix of other folks; 2) there's this article from 2015 that is a little outdated but basically has the description down   https://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/bryants.  I ordered a half-rack of ribs and some potato salad.

Arthur Bryant's ribs and potato salad

The young women at the check-out end asked if I wanted sauce and, if so, what kind.  They offer original, sweet and spicy.  I figured if they were still offering the original it must be pretty good and said so.  But they said, well it has an unusual taste because of the vinegar and they thought I'd be happier with the sweet.  But I knew I probably wouldn't be happier with the sweet (they must have thought I was a nice little old lady from Queens or something) and they said well, for themselves they mixed the sweet and the spicy together.  I still wanted original and they ended up giving me 2 containers of the original, and 1 each of the spicy and sweet.  I ended up with a lot of barbecue sauce.  I learned that the original almost certainly has Tabasco in it, or something very much like it - it has the same color and texture and taste, though after a few bites "taste" is a relative term.  I still thought it was good.  As were both the ribs and the potato salad.  This made 3 meals for me.

I went from there to Jack Stack BBQ, another highly rated KC bbq place.  This is the chain I found last year on the Kansas side of Kansas City.  They're the ones who introduced me to burnt ends, and that's what I went back to find.  And I did find them, though Google's directions left something to be desired and, unfortunately, the dogs needed to be walked and I couldn't find anywhere to do that.  We tried in the Jack Stack parking lot, but that's shared with 2 or 3 other restaurants and Dexter's a whiz at finding semi-edible things I don't want him to find, so the walk was really short.  I made this barbecue my supper.

Jack Stack's beef (left) and pork (right) burnt ends and beans

This was 3 meals too.  I ate a lot of barbecue this week and didn't feel sad about it at all, except when it was all gone.

The Jack Stack barbecue sauce is something like you might find in a bottle labeled KC Masterpiece - sweet and spicy and tomato-y and very good.  But that original Arthur Bryant's is really something.

This might be a good place to mention that Kansas City, MO, had almost a half million residents in 2010 (and I'm guessing it's grown since then), and the total metropolitan area, including the Kansas side, has more than 2 million people.  So even in the middle of the day there were a lot of people rushing around, all apparently knowing where they were going, which I didn't really.  

For the 2nd time today I made a wrong turn and got really lost.  By the time I got myself found again, I was tired and still had a half-hour drive to the campground, so I decided not to do any looking around town today.  I did think I'd found a nice place to stop for the dogs, but it turned out to not be grass but instead that weed that's sticky and causes red itchy places on exposed skin.  Well, on humans anyway, and I was afraid it might do that to the dogs too, so we had to cut that walk short too.  This wasn't a great dog-walking day.

The KOA was fairly full, this being a Friday evening, and we ended up right next door to a very large yellow lab.  There were 2 problems with that, the first being that the lab and its people came in a very small e-pod camper, so they all wanted to spend as much time outside as possible.  The second problem was that I learned when another neighbor tried to walk her large dog that the yellow lab barked loudly and a lot as soon as it set eyes on another dog.  With this combination, there was no way we could set foot outside the RV.  I finally went next door and apologized for my dopey dog but you see I've got this problem and he's just overly friendly and it's hard for me to hang onto him and would you mind very much putting your dog inside for just 10 or 15 minutes so I can walk my dogs before bed?  They were real nice about it, thank goodness.