Driving up from F-L-A
Headed Colorado's way
Get on the Interstate
Downtown: through Atlanta
Stopping for the night:
In Chattanooga...

Morning: take I-24
-57, -64
St. Lou', passing through
Arch (that's not MickeyDâ„¢) [1]
Missouri, quickly flies
Now, four hundred miles of Kansas [2]

Through Topeka, then --- What the ---? *Manhattan*? [3]
Must have turned the wrong way! ... No, Kansas
Quite nice place, for the night, to hang hat in
Keep driving all day through Kansas

The land rolls to horizon line
Not speeding; doing sixty-nine
From the Mississip': Plains, uphill, climbing [4]
The people there are fine
There's much less of crime in ol' Kansas

Grow our grain; flour gave, for our baking
Corn and soybeans, wind sway, in Kansas
Give us this: daily bread, for the taking
Thus, we're blessed ev'ry day by Kansas

Cattle, hogs, and sheep (Sheep? TT's horny!)
Aircraft factor-ies [5]
Gas, oil are falling, though: Kansas [6]

Fin'lly see, from State Line, Rockies tower
(April: Come back this way, through Kansas)
Over Loveland, or through Eisenhower [7]
I think, Toto, we're way from Kansas.... [8]



[1] For those who've never seen it, there's a link in the outro to a beautiful panoramic view of the cityscape and the monumental arch over it, built to commemorate the fact that St. Louis, right below the juncture of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, was considered the "Gateway to the West" during the westward expansion of the US across the Mississippi. .

(Song doesn't mention it, but no matter which branch of the Interstate Highway you take around or through St. Louis, sooner or later you'll end up on I-70 as you leave it, headed west.)

[2] *Almost* rectangular (like its neighbors to the west), at 417 miles (645 km) x 211 miles (340 km).

[3] The settlement was originally named "Boston" -- that is *not* original, people -- before some newcomers insisted on something equally unoriginal, "Manhattan". For that matter, Manhattan Beach, CA, a beachside suburb of Los Angeles, was named by a homesick New Yorker -- apparently not quite homesick enough to leave the pleasant weather and beach and go back to NYC -- go figure!

[4] Often mistakenly thought of as "flat as a pancake", or "the flattest State" (cough)fl(cough), Kansas is in fact part of the climb of the Great Plains from the drainage of the Mississippi River to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Long, rolling terrain may mask the climb from elevation 684 ft (208 m) near the State's eastern border to 4,039 ft (1,231 m) near the western border with Colorado.

[5] An early home to aviation pioneering, due to the wide-open spaces, back before planes used runways. In June 1911, Clyde Cessna, a farmer in Rago, Kansas, built a wood-and-fabric plane and became the first person to build and fly an aircraft between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. Current factories include Boeing, Cessna, and Learjet.

[6] Currently ranked 8th in the US in both oil and natural gas production, though both have been declining over the past two decades, as most of the "easy pickin's" have already been taken -- causing drillers to go elsewhere, like, say, a mile under the Gulf of Mexico....

(In the course of this research, learned that the state is using coal deposits to produce more *methane*. As usual, TT is way ahead of the crowd [shrugs shell shoulders] - what can he say?)

[7] We're still on Interstate 70, westbound, past Denver, Colorado, and climbing up the Rockies. Only two ways to cross the Continental Divide. (Does anyone know why it's called the "Continental Divide", and what, *exactly*, it divides? No fair looking it up.)

For many years, the only way was a long, switchback climb up a steep, winding, two-lane road over Loveland Pass, elevation 11,990 ft (3,650 m). (A pic taken from the crest by a companion, showing the monument, the elevation sign, and the breathtaking views, is on the wall of TT's reef.) It's the highest mountain pass in the *world* that regularly stays open during a snowy winter season.

The Eisenhower Tunnel through the Rockies opened as a two-lane tunnel in 1973, expanded to four lanes (a second bore, so that there's one two-lane tunnel in each direction) in 1979. The highest vehicular tunnel in the US, it cuts about 800 vertical feet (244 m) and 20-30 minutes off the drive time versus the Pass. To mitigate the dangers posed by a fire inside the tunnel, trucks hauling hazardous materials, including gasoline, are prohibited from using the tunnel, and must take the above route over the mountains.

If the Pass becomes temporarily closed during a blizzard, hazmat trucks line up and wait. (The troopers give them coffee in the meantime..) Once each hour, all traffic is emptied from the tunnels, and the hazmat trucks will be guided through in a convoy (Big Ben, this here's the Rubber Duck, 10-4) accompanied by state troopers.

Why are we still talking about Colorado? To give a strong finish to the Kansas tribute, of course...

[8] A double homage to Dorothy and Oz. (ready?)

The weather on the western side of said Continental Divide can be dramatically different from that on the eastern side, where the Rockies might block storms coming down from western Canada - even though the Eisenhower Tunnel is only about 1.7 mi (2.7km) long.

On one trip: (true story) Approaching from the East, signs warning truckers to stop and "chain up" (put on tire chains), with cops to enforce that, despite only very light snowflakes falling on the rocky crags. Upon exiting the tunnel on the West side, heavy snow and a "winter wonderland", "picture postcard" scene of a blanket of white covering *everything* -- including the road.***

TT', typically talking to himself (it's a long drive): "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto."