Six? Seven?

Necopolis Bound!

Today we visited Kansas City, home in a virtual reality to Firnost, the Changling Freehold as well as other less savory spots. In our own reality, little of what we saw was particulary savory except for the restaurant where we sampled Kansas City BBQ. We drove in on the MO side and exited on the KA side, and without insulting anyone who holds Kansas City near and dear... the place was a dump.

Single story brick buildings encased in iron bars, gates and grills up on every door and window. Too many people loitering on the corners, no jobs to be at and no other profitable exercises to attend to. As you get closer to the center of the city, of course things change; the buildings are less fortified, taller and better kept. People bustle purposefully to and fro. But the parts we saw or were unintentionally detoured through were run down warehouse parking lots and other urban areas. If you know Firnost, you might find that funny.

The restaurant where we stopped, I'm not making this up, was "Gates BBQ". www.gatesbbq.com.

GATES restaurant. In Kansas City. We have pictures.

(For those who don't know, I have a role playing character that started out based in KC, who's last name is Gates. She's developed a level of infamy amongst some, and to find she's been running a BBQ joint here is particularly entertaining.)

The joint was jumpin' for lunchtime. It was a buffet style service line, with the counter staff shouting "High May Ah Help You??" (in the musical key of "NEXT!!") one after another. We walked in and the aroma of BBQ struck us with enough force for M to sigh "Oh yeah...". We split a mixed platter of ham, beef, and ribs with fries; I'd recently had a yougurt and couldn't handle the thought of a larger lunch than picking of M's plate.

It was a very good meal, with the ham and ribs being found as our favorites. The beef was a bit dry, I thought. M particularly enjoyed the fries (chips) saying he hadn't had 'real' chips like this in a while. The BBQ sauce was more tomato-y than other sauces we've had, and we wondered if that was typical of KC BBQ. See http://www.experiencekc.com/barbeque.html for more information on KC v. other types of BBQ.

There was enough food for both of us to eat until full, with some ham left over that M took to eat in the car.

I spent the day in the car alternately reading aloud to M from "Don't Eat This Book" by Morgan Spurlock and entering addresses from my address book in the laptop.

"Don't Eat This Book" is a follow-on piece to "Super-Size Me", both by Spurlock. We've been discussing the points he makes and we're of a common mind that he's a screaming liberal who makes some very good, common-sense points that we can both agree with.

"Super-Size Me" was a documentary in which Spurlock ate Mc'Donald's food for 30 days, every meal, only McD's. It damn near killed him. He says he did it because McD's claims the food is nutricious, which Spurlock took to mean you should be able to eat it all the time. To be honest, that's how I'd interpret that claim too.

"DETB" talkes about the Big Food lobbies (often companies owened by tobacco companies, according to his research), school lunch programs, diet and exercise in America, and his own McMonth of eating fast food. I recommend the book to all, but read it with your own grams of sodium balanced on your tongue; remember the source of the information. He makes some leaps of meaning that I don't quite agree with, and some of his sources are not sources you might want to trust, or might want to research before you do. Still, he makes some excellent points about American diet and exercise; there's no denying we're the Fattest Nation on Earth.

For the record, we haven't stopped at a McDonald's since we started this trip; the worst we've done is Pizza Hut. We've been trying to eat at local, "real food" places.

Continuing on our trip, we stopped in Witchia for some snacks at the Air Force Base there, proving to Mick that those things are the same everywhere. Something reassuring about it, though. Thought about a Kansas bred girl I know, and kept her in my heart.

We ended the evening just after crossing the border into Oklahoma; we found a convenient hotel and stopped there. Mika's travel style has seemed to settle into the footwell behind the front passenger seat and ride there happily. The girls pretty much stay in the crate; Princess has been out once or twice, but mostly keeps Jerry company - often serving as a pillow.

The only down side to this homey little Motel 8 was the lack of internet; hence the late entry. I'll catch you up on Saturday in my next entry. For the Seidl Report, I'm me.