Independence and Kansas City, Missouri - half way across the country

Saturday June 27

Headed for Independence, Missouri and have reached the half way mark on the trip. If you can see the yellow hi liter on my map you will see I am now smack dab in the middle of the country having come 2000 miles in two weeks.  There are a lot of red dots behind me in the southwest which I will do on my trip home in the Spring.  Ahead is all of the early history of our country which I expect to take the next 11 months to explore.

Glad I brought along a lot of tunes and books on tape to get me thru the midwest where there's nothing but religious and conservative talk shows on the radio.


Arriving in Independence, Missouri you are thinking Truman Library and Museum, aren't you?  If you were traveling with me you might insist I see these places, which is why I'm traveling solo. My childhood memories of Harry Truman's presidency don't really warrant a visit here for me. Oh, I know after Roosevelt died it took great courage by Harry to make the decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that essentially ended WWII. And for that alone I probably should honor his memory by paying a visit to his library.  Instead I'm reading one of his daughter Margret's novels Murder at the Kennedy Center. She is quite a talented mystery novelist and who can forget her classical piano playing on the Ed Sullivan show.  Or what that Ike's daughter?

I did swing by for a photo of Harry and Bess's place since I love old homes. Seems to be some construction happening with a cyclone fence around it.

Lovely neighborhood where Harry used to walk. The route of his walk is noted with large life size cutouts of Harry in his bowler hat on various streets. Was tempted to stroll along but was on my way for some good Kansas City barbeque.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. When I first arrived in Independence this morning I stopped to see Leila's Hair Museum. Probably the only hair museum. Leila Cohoon's collection of these fascinating pieces of art numbers 700 wreaths and 2,000 pieces of jewelry. My solo tour was given by Josie whose passion for the subject was obvious. The human and animal hair used was not always from the deceased. One large framed piece was done by a mother who included the hair of all of her children at different stages of their lives. It was a look into the way women's lives have changed over the past several hundred years from the time women could only be at home doing these home arts.

A way to record history before cameras. The earliest piece was from 1680. I don't like the overused word amazing, but this museum truly was just that.

Josie

                   And now to the real reason I came to Kansas City, the barbeque.  Found a DDD restaurant, Smoking Guns BBQ which gave me enough food to last several days. Excellent even tho I'm not much of a meat eater.

                 

Spent the night in a great rv park for kids, Camp Away RV park in Lincoln, Neb.  I miss seeing little ones and this place has many families. Sat in the hot tub for only a few minutes when in came 4 teenage girls who were members of a softball team playing a tournament. So we talked baseball until boyfriend talk took over and I left.