Circle the Bay: Day 7: Going to Kansas City

Day 7: Going to Kansas City
Oct. 3rd 2017

(Circle the Bay Part Two)

436 miles in 8 hours

(Total 3103 miles in 62 hours)

I was surprised when driving south on I-35 to cross the Missouri River. I forgot that Missouri is the state where internal to its boundaries the Missouri River traverses from the path of the Mississippi to the its own path west of Iowa and the northern half of Missouri.

In other words I didn't know Kansas City Missouri was west of the Missouri River. Where the Kansas River flows into the Missouri. This all made Kansas City feel far more like the Twin Cities than other cities I've visited. Bluff cities with flatland industry at a confluence of rivers. And a place worth visiting for music, as the list of open mike blues shows in Kansas City was as long as the meat commodity market announcements in Iowa.

I-70/I-35 Bridge over the Missouri

On Quality Hill overlooking the bend in the Missouri River where the Kansas River joins, there is Clark Park with a statue of Clark, Lewis, Sacagawea, York (Clark's slave), and Seaman (Clark's Dog).

Sacagawea, Clark, and Lewis

York, Clark's Slave and a Seaman, Clark's Dog

At the Kansas State House in Topeka I learned that the Kansas Territory was given the choice to enter the United States as either a free or slave state, and they had to decide before applying. Supporters of North and South flooded the state, and armed conflict sprang up as it took 10 referendums to resolve the question and enter into the Union as a free state.

Kansas State House, Topeka Kansas

For me this provided backstory to John Brown, the abolitionist zealot from Kansas who sparked the Civil War. In a mural in the State House he can be seen astride the battling Union and Confederate troops with a definite crazy look in his eye, seeing farther than the rest.