Trans-Atlantica - Not so Weird Science.

Good morning and welcome to what will probably be the last post from Tornado country! Tomorrow I'll be hitting the road to Washington, leaving behind my chance to be swept away to Oz forever. Don't tell me it's impossible,I saw it in a movie and read it in a book so that makes it double true!

In a continuation of my tour of fine American dining (which has mostly consisted of fast food burger joints, not that there's a stereotype or anything!) we headed out to Spears, which I can only assume is a place where good food goes to die. I've had a less depressing experience eating in a retirement home, at least there the residents always seem cheerful and chatty! Here it was like they'd taken all that was bad about those places, the endless rows of mismatched knick-knacks, the funeral dirge covers of your grandparents favourite songs, the grotequse decor, and decided that was a great backdrop for serving food. I'm not altogether sure if I was imaging the old folk smell or if it was really there.

Naturally I could forgive all of this if the food and service was good, and to be fair the sandwich I had was decent! It's not what we went there for, granted (once upon a time they did a mean catfish, I'm told, which is now off the menu) but it was decent. The chips and lemonade left a lot to be desired however.As to service, I don't want to be too mean to another human being so I'll reserve any judgement on how perpetually confused the poor young fellow serving our table seemed, but the fact he asked us if everything was okay before we got our food then ignored us from there on out? That was more than a little bizarre.

After that we headed over to my friend's sister's house, and I got an education in cake making! By which I mean I sat around,watched and ate icing and cupcakes. The best kind of education there is! I watched her make a minion cake a few days ago, and my mind was kind of blown by the level of talent involved. This time around she was making Ninja Turtle and Hello Kitty cakes for my goddaughter's early birthday party later that day, and there may have been one other addition that she had nothing to do with but I'm sure you'll all agree is a masterpiece in it's own right.

Ahem.

The next day we went out and did some more honest to God tourist stuff. We visited the Exploration Place, which is a child friendly science centre situated next to the most gorgeous river side I've seen since I arrived stateside. It features a much larger sculpture of a figure you may just remember from last blog (no, not Elvis, although that would've been kind of awesome).

The centre itself was pretty enjoyable, especially considering that it was primarily aimed at children. My two year old goddaughter seemed hyper excited to be there, and especially loved the planes and musical instruments, so it seemed to do its job well enough! Even if it was aimed above her age group for the most part. And hey, at least there shouldn't be anything overly creepy in this one...

Oh. Well, at least there shouldn't be any of the dead animals that seem to have plagued this trip...

God damn it America, I give up with you.

One really cool exhibit they had was the miniature Kansas, which I think was supposed to represent everything that's idealised about the state in one model. It was really rather impressive and I could have spent hours looking at it, and the cutaway they had outside showing how the hydraulics worked for the moving parts was a fun addition too.

I guess now I've seen the entirety of Kansas in miniature I've experienced pretty much everything there is to experience here! Not to mention the hotel is coming apart at the seams.

Well that seems as good a sign as an to get the hell out of here and hit the road! I'll see you all in Washington!

Trans-Atlantica - You're history, punk!

Good morning and welcome to another beautiful day in Kansas. Although after the first night here I regard any day without fifty mile per hour winds that e in front of you and your coat most of the way off as a beautiful day, but that's neither here nor there.

There's been a theme to the last couple of days and that theme is history. It also featured something that shouldn't be a tourist attraction, or worth talking about, but somehow is. Much like Bass Pro Shop before it, I walked in expecting a commercial outlet and was soon busting out my camera to take pictures. I'm trying to think of anything comparable at home, and I suppose those ye olde shoppes that cash in big on their heritage might count? But they don't seem to put anywhere near the same amount of effort in and more often than not just look like a smaller and darker version of every other shop around them.

Welcome to Spangles! And more importantly, welcome to America, mainly as I'm not sure you've been properly inducted until you've seen some form of Elvis. Spangles is a small chain restaurant that I'm told only operates out of Wichita. They're a burger joint that has been open since the 1930s and go to great lengths not just to look the part, but go above and beyond the call of duty to look that good.

Apologies for breaking out the vintage filter, it just seemed appropriate. The atmosphere there was fantastic, every wall was covered in something new and interesting to stare at. And the food? Oh, if I could just move into that dinner and never have to leave I think I could live in this country quite happily. I mean, I'd weigh several tonnes after a few months, but I'd be happy? If there was one thing my visit to Spangles did teach me, aside from how great the food is, it was of the perils of driving on the wrong side of the road.

Don't do it, kids. You'll careen into an American style dinner and forever be enshrined as a decorative piece, where everyone can laugh at you for being such an idiot. Trust me, it'll happen.

After that we went to the mall, which was nothing to write home about but I did experience a real taste of mid-western culture (I implied this was the South last night, ignorant foreigner that I am, a mistake I will not be repeating! Due in no small part to the picture below).

They... They start them young here. Real young.

...

Moving swiftly on, the next day we headed out to the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum, not the museum we were planning to go too but my goodness does it have a beautiful building!

The inside reminded me a whole lot of the local history museums back home. The ones that are one part local history museum and one part very recentish history museum. The Victorian era drug store replica really reminded me of the bar replica in the history museum in Luton and the replicas of the old rooms, with time period specific furnishings, called back to the Sherlock Holmes museum of all places in my mind, but that is in no way a bad thing! I love little museums like that, they document things that other places might overlook. And for five dollars entrance? Yeah, I was more than happy there! Even if most of the exhibits did look a touch creepy.

Wait, can go back to that last picture?

Johnny Depp... Is that.. Is that you?!

Moving even more swiftly on again, there were some really cool looking exhibits in there too. Including the aforementioned drug store replica, and the old time garage with the model T was fun too. It was great to see the signage in the museum use the words 'Victorian era' because I always did wonder if that was a British thing or no. For all I knew they tagged their eras by president. I loved the atomic age displays too, mainly because I'd be quite happy if somebody bought me some of that cool, retro Sci-Fi looking furniture.

If nothing else, it was nice of the museum to lay a chair out for the humble British visitor. They even roped it off to keep away the riff raff.

And while we're on the subject of being painfully British, I also had my first taste of iced tea in Spangles. I know it's not strictly and American invention, but my native friends insisted and so it happened, and I'm still wishing it hadn't. I will never understand the allure of cold tea. Never. The sweetened version tasted like ten hour old regular tea with a nice think film of undissolved sugar in the bottom of the mug. I swear I've poured better tasting things down the sink, and I may have accidentally out a paintbrush in some of those. I did get my revenge by accidentally getting one of them lost in what was supposedly a rough neighbourhood. Which to me looked a lot like the set of Sister Act 2 pouring out into the streets, with an awful lot of eighties style hair and clothing on the teenagers as they came out of school. It was curious and uncanny and led me not to worry, until I remembered that people got shot in those movies and then I was about as worried as she was after that!

We survived, though, and I think today I'm going to take it a little easier. Hopefully they'll be more fun to be had in Kansas, as I've heard about some really great things here and hope to be able to visit them. I'll see you guys when I have something to share!

Trans-Atlantica - Off to see the Wizard.

Well my friends, we finally bid Colorado farewell as I'm working my way into my second night in Kansas. We spent the last few hours in Aurora packing up our things and saying goodbye to our freshly married friend there, never made it to that museum but hey, we're passing through on the way back so you never know (spoiler: we won't get there, but that's okay, friends are better than attractions any day).

We were soon ready to hit the road, and let me tell you, as somebody from a country that can probably be crossed from one end to the other in six hours on a good day? The six hour road trip to Kansas had sounded daunting. Especially as, without getting into details, America has kinda been kicking my arse all over the place these past couple of days. But I was surprised how fast it flew by.

Most of it was on one, long flat road with nothing but plains either side, and I'm not saying I was captivated, because I know how boring that sounds, but I've just never seen that much space before. Especially with all the strange farm machines, grain silos, aging billboards that look thirty years old and are probably advertising something that doesn't exist anymore. I mean, I had fantastic company as well which helped the hours tick by immensely but Kansas really does seem like a different country in a way Colorado didn't.

For one thing, I've actually saw a sight today! A real, legitimate place of interest that isn't a store! We stayed the first night with a friend's family and they were nice enough to take us over to Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, which was pretty fantastic. I always have mixed feelings on zoo's, and there are some animals it straight up depresses me to see caged (especially the way those animals are caged at most places) but I always think the conservation work outweighs any dismay in that regard. Plus they have monkeys, and who doesn't like monkeys?!

As I left the car I even uttered 'Oh my god! I finally get to do tourist stuff!!!', which does remind me I probably need to cut down on all the taking the Lord's name in vain, as I doubt it'd be appreciated here. At least, that is the impression I'm getting.In any case I'm gonna shut up again and let you see some animals!



And of course, no trip to the zoo would be compete without a gorilla judging your soul.



I was quite proud of some of the pictures I aquirred this trip, I'm not sure if the animals were in a better mood than usual (it was feeding time, so it's possible!), if my camera is better or if I just had more sense and wasn't trying to photograph everything so I got better results but all in all it was fun and I think I have enough fodder to make cows making stupid faces memes for a lifetime.

One thing that did amuse me is that they rather blatantly caged freedom though.



And another thing that was baffling was the very... Interesting signage and displays.



As you can see they were either really graphic or just really strange in a way I've never seen anywhere else. There was a part of the bear exhibit that had a whole area paved with names and we couldn't figure out if it was a dedication to people who donated or a list of people who had been mauled by bears in the state. Neither would really surprise me right now.

After that fun day out I've moved into my new base of operations, a Value Place hotel which honesty doesn't seem too bad. At least it has working Internet which is more than I can say for the last one. The one complaint I do have right off the bat is this though,



Blinds! Always with the blinds or the paper thin flimsy fabric curtains on this trip. What do they have against real curtains?! Expecially when neither keep the bright light of day out properly so you better want to wake up when the sun does otherwise you're screwed! Ah well, it's nice enough otherwise so I'm sure everything will work out! I'll see you guys next time! Not sure what we're up too out here