Centres and cemeteries
Today’s sunrise was muted by ominous dark clouds that foreshadowed the weather for the day. Our itinerary included a couple of drive-bys today – sights, not experiences. We’re amending our plan on the fly as we are ahead of schedule, and hope to take advantage of the time in hand to visit Arches National Park, a place we originally planned to skip due to lack of time.
The rain fell in large, dense drops, reducing visibility and speed, and cleansing the layer of bug guts from the car’s grill and windshield. (What’s the last thing that goes through a bug’s mind when it hits a windshield? Its legs!)
A few miles and prayers later and the rain eased and then stopped just as we pulled into Independence, Missouri. This eastern suburb of Kansas City is the location where Joseph Smith (first Mormon prophet and LDS church founder) predicted the heavenly city of Zion would be established. A small plot of land, the Temple Lot, was where a special temple was to be built. The lot is currently owned by the Community of Christ (an LDS offshoot) and undeveloped. They have, however built an impressive structure across the street, all the more impressive given their global membership is <8000.
Adjacent to the Temple Lot is the UN Peace Plaza, the site of a monument dedicated to UN Peacekeepers.
With the sky clearing and the roads drying, we headed west on US 36 – the Pony Express Highway. For four hours. In a straight line. Kansas is the Saskatchewan of the US – quite flat, lots of crops and roads as straight as arrows.
Just outside of Lebanon, Kansas, we arrived at the geographic center of the contiguous US. This point is marked by a flag, a sign and a tiny chapel. Here we placed our first public sticker on the back of a sign and joining many others previously placed. Despite being in the middle of nowhere, there was a constant stream of visitors during our brief stop.
Crossing into Nebraska, we drove another road (I-80) in a straight line for hours towards our hotel, with a brief stop in Ogallala to see the Boot Hill Cemetery, and read about its history. This place took me back 30+ years to when I played TSR’s role playing game Boot Hill in a friend’s dingy basement.
Finally, we arrived in Sidney, Nebraska to our hotel, which serves as a suitable place to stop in preparation for tomorrow’s edition of the Weird and Wonderful Tour.
