A strong winter storm Sunday brought many hours of blizzard conditions to Kansas City and about half a foot of snow, the second highest one day day November total. Roads have gradually improved though many areas have melted and refrozen with chilly overnight temperatures. Many flights were canceled at nearby Kansas City International and I lost power at the house for about an hour, luckily with the gas fireplace already lit.
A mid-afternoon KCI observation shows the storm had quite a punch:
I arrived in the Bay Area to the terrible air quality resulting from the wildfires burning across Northern California, including the catastrophic Camp Fire. San Bruno Mountain was barely visible from SFO and downtown was a hazy outline from Treasure Island. It was great to catch up with friends and spend time in the East Bay and Monterey where I lived a total of 29 years.
Poor air quality in San FranciscoRental house in Carmel-by-the-Sea
From Carmel we meandered down Highway 1 along the coast, having a last lunch at Ventana high up in the hills near Big Sur. The winding road was the most scenic portion of the entire journey on a cloud free afternoon, south of the wildfire smoke. Turning inland just past Cambria, Highway 46 winds through the coastal hills through booming Paso Robles and out to the Central Valley. Past the torn up landscape of Lost Hills oil rigs by I-5 the drive was slow going behind trucks. We stopped at a 99 cent store parking lot in Wasco to feed dogs, unfortunately discovering in the dim light weeds sticking to their fur. After the trek through the Tehachapi Pass it was late getting into Barstow making it the first stop.
California coast near Big SurSpike, Snoopy's brother, lives outside Needles, California
From Barstow through Needles and Kingman up into the mountains and Flagstaff went from the dry desert to mountain snow alongside the highway. It was getting late in eastern Arizona so we settled into Holbrook for the night, visiting the Petrified Forest the next day. The namesake fossils were formed when downed logs in rivers were buried with volcanic ash, replacing the internal structure with silica forming quartz, colored by trace iron oxide. This leaves wonderful large mineral deposits still retaining the shape of the originating trees. The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in the 1880s and later Route 66 brought tourism right through the park. On a chilly November morning we passed only a handful of other visitors.
Petrified wood
I was unfamiliar with the movie The Petrified Forest, an Achie Mayo adaptation of a 1935 Broadway production. The story has little to do with the park beside being set a diner there during the Great Depression.
Painted Desert
Being late in the year there was little fervor in mid November roadside tourism. Continuing on I-40 we made good time through Gallup (sopapillas!) and Albuquerque to Tucumcari. Once a busy rail junction and then a major stop on the Mother Road the town is most notable to me through its reference in westerns and is today fairly quiet. Del's offered some tasty enchiladas under their vintage neon sign.
Dorothy in Liberal, Kansas
From Tucumcari we turned northeast and across the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles through to Kansas. The wind swept High Plains were brutal while trying to walk the occasionally fussy dogs. The Wizard of Oz makes no reference to Dorothy's specific home town but Liberal, Kansas makes claim to the title, with statues across town, a museum, and a replica house. Stopping to have a late lunch we found options limited by a train blocking the main street, Kansas Ave, that didn't move out until after we had finished eating.
Wichita, the largest city in Kansas, was even larger than I had envisioned. We were able to find a nice hotel downtown just a couple of blocks from the river. From there it was a relatively quick segment back to KC including the entire length of the Kansas Turnpike.
Tue, Oct 30, 2018 in TravelCargo plane taking off from Anchorage International
Spent a week in Anchorage for work this month, to help with the future of aviation cloud and visibility forecasting in the state of Alaska. It was late in the season so many businesses were closed and the weather was more dreary than in previous visits. Still it was nice to take an extra day on the weekend before to go exploring on the Kenai Peninsula, before spending the next several days primarily in conference rooms. Dinner at Orso was great as always, and Bread and Brew was a great new suggestion from the hotel barman.
French Bottoms, an area of river bottom along the Missouri River near St. Joseph, was by settlers from France as early as the 1850s. The flood of 1952 damaged many buildings but also changed the course of the river, cutting off access from the rest of the state of Missouri. To reach the area today one must drive across a bridge into Kansas and then a couple of miles north back into virtual enclave.
Bench at Rosecrans Airport
Rosecrans Municipal Airport was created in 1939 in the area and named after Sgt Guy Wallace Rosecrans, the only airman from nearby St. Joseph killed in World War I, and it became an army airfield as well shortly thereafter. Scheduled airline service ended in 1969 but the airport remains active, primarily in use by the Missouri Air National Guard.
