July 18 - I traveled all day on route 149 north making several stops in Carthage, Jasper, LaMar, Sheldon, Nevada, Horton, Butler, Harrisonville, Pleasant Hill and Belton. It was a hot, exhausting day but I saw many interesting sights. High-points of the day were the birthplace of President Harry Truman in Lamar in a nice small house on the edge of town. It has been nicely restored to original condition using period furniture. The woman at the museum building opened the house and gave me a personal tour.
I also happened upon an amazing building in Nevada, it didn't appear to be open, but I saw a man inside, I pushed on the door and it opened. I then heard all about the collection inside. The building is filled wall to wall with antique tools, car parts, antiques, lamps, fans, hardware items. It seems that he has been collecting this stuff for decades and he sells pieces at times on eBay, but he showed me several pieces that he will never sell.
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| Carthage Courthouse Route 66 display |
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| Carthage still celebrates their confederat victory |
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| Lamar Plaza Theater is a beauty |
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| The old barber shop |
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| Truman birthplace |
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| Hardware store in Nevada is amazing |
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| Love the way he marked each drawer |
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| Rich Hill is't rich these days |
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| The bank is closed |
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| The whole town is mostly closed |
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| Harrisonville mural, the were on the confederate side too |
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| The Court House |
I stop in Belton, MO pulling into a Cracker Barrel restaurant where I stay for the night.
July 19 - The plan is to go to the Thomas Hart Benton home and studio for a tour. It’s a drive through a rough looking neighborhood with lots of street art, (may want to return to this area) and then lots of turns and eventually into a high end district and the house. I am unsure how this tour works, I’m haven’t been able to reserve or pay for the tour on line. I park and get out to at least look around when a friendly man comes from the back to tell me the next tour is 11AM but I’m free to hang out and gives me a tour guide to look around the area. At 11AM, it’s me and one other couple on the guided tour of the studio which is nearly exactly like it was when Thomas had a heart attack and died there. After the studio, we see the house which also is mostly unchanged. The docent was great and gave us intimate details on Benton, his wife and children, more that you would ever get from a book, it was great. I now have even a greater admiration for this artist, he was so much more that an artist, also was a renaissance man of sorts balancing art, music, writing, reading and socialized with many of the most prominent people of his day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hart_Benton_(painter)
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| The studio |
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| Just as he left it |
After that, I drive to the downtown shopping area and walk around a three block segment taking in the sights.
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| Great Fountain |
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| Great Storefront |
I ride down Broadway Blvd. where I come upon the historic old Uptown Theater that I remember from a previous trip. The marquee is listing a show for the night, Father John Misty that sounds kind of interesting. I check their web site ending up on Ticketmaster, tickets available, but I can’t seem get through all the complicated hurdles to purchase a ticket. As a result, I’ll just go to the theater early and hope I can buy a ticket at the ticket booth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uptown_Theater_(Kansas_City,_Missouri)
Okay, now I find my way to the Crossroads Arts District which is quite decadent but colorful, take several photos and then get a burger at the Town-Topic diner, open 24 hours and celebrating 75 years in business ! It full of a cross section of humanity, quite interesting.
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Next I go to the historic Westport District, a very historic area, where the wagon trains used to pass through. I then see a historic sign that I remember from years ago. Now I’ve got to say something, how is that I can’t fucking remember where I was last week, but I can remember some obscure road sign from years ago which directs me across the street to a mural on the wall of a great blues club that I had visited on another trip years ago. I’m now hot, sweaty, tired and thirsty, all to do is go into one of the bars and have a cold beer. I’m sitting here and woman ultimate fighting is on the TV, it’s disgusting, so trashy, the male version is bad enough. It’s also all over facebook, do the guys or the woman actually get turned on watching women beat each other senseless ?
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| History occured here |
Next is the concert, I get there a hour before it opens, already a huge line outside. I decide I should walk up to the ticket counter to see what is the status, I’m surprised that there is no line, the woman at the window says that someone just bought all the remaining tickets except one and I can have it, free. I ask are you sure ? and she confirms, I take the ticket, hope it is real, get back in line and I enter without issue, must be my lucky day ? Really, I don’t know or care anything about these two bands playing, In really I am more interested in seeing the interior of this 1920’s theater.
The first band had a vibrant smooth talking front man backed by an overly loud band, he had a high pitched voice, his lyrics were buried by the guitars. The headliners band was equally loud, the front man, Father John Misty, was a bit weird, sort of strutted around the stage, trying to be ultra cool, making strange comments, his voice was good but again you couldn’t understand much of his lyrics. I thought it was horrible but people around me were loving it, I felt like this was some sort kind of weird sect ? I usually feel that way at rock concerts where everyone is so loving everything, they so need the love, to participate in the moment when in actuality it’s not very great ? I might be over reacting a bit ? I slip out of the concert before the finale.
I ride around a hour or so afterwards to find a parking spot where I feel somewhat safe. It’s difficult in the dark, but I settle in on a residential street.
July 20 - I leave my overnight spot about 7 AM then drive to a MacDonalds a short distance away. Inside they have gospel music playing and a large black man working the drive through is singing along. Outside, I see a young white guy sleeping on the sidewalk adjacent to the drive through. A car pulls up to place an order and the customer offers the man some money. It was an act of kindness that was a nice start to my day.
I go to a downtown Library as it opens at 11 AM, but I can’t get on WiFi due to a system problem, instead I do some photo editing. There are quite a few homeless looking characters and an altercation develops between a couple of them, but the library staff and others prevent real violence, working in a library these days can be a dangerous job.
I then head north to Rochester Street for two separate music evens taking place at the Knuckleheads Saloon. I’ve never heard of this club, but it’s quite a famous music club primarily for the country, blues and even alternative band scene. The first part from 1-5 PM is It was a local blues jam session involving many of the best musicians in Kansas City. It was a full house of dedicated fans and was absolutely one of the best blues jams I’ve ever seen, truly great !
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuckleheads_Saloon
Then a 7 PM famous singer songwriter Willie Nile is doing a solo show in another more intimate room, the intimate Gospel Lounge at Knuckleheads. I’ve seen him several times in the New Jersey area and he’s always great, an amazing song writer, musician and story teller. He follows in the folk song tradition of Bob Dylan and is greatly influenced by that time period in New York City. People in the know, particularly other songwriters and of course people like me know and have a deep respect for Willie Nile, but he never achieved the success he should have ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Nile
After the show, I drive to the Harrah's Casino for the night. It’s a miserable night in the van, so hot and humid and it’s killing my refrigerator. This Casino is situated close to the Missouri River, in fact the road out front is called Riverfront Drive. I took a quick walk inside Casino and somehow I wasn’t that impressed, I thinks it needs an update.
July 21 - I decide to drive south back into downtown Kansas City, it’s a crazy drive in morning rush traffic over a complicated route and then the rain and thunder unleashes a downpour causing me to pull over and wait it out for about an hour. I again go to the library where I spend way too much time, then get some ice to put in my refrigerator that is still not right. I end up spending the night on the side of a park area, now I remember doing this exact same thing on a previous trip, it’s the park with beautiful water fountain where I talked to a nice couple who were homeless, I gave them some cash, it made me feel real good as they were good people. It appears that lots of car people sleep overnight in this park side area.
July 22 - As I’m getting tired of the rat race here in Kansas City, I’m heading north today to the city of St. Joseph. I have to drive north through downtown Kansas City to escape, but I see an area with lots of hard core street art off to the side, just got to stop. This area has some attractions too, mostly decadent however, lots of bars, breweries and dispensaries.
After tiring of that, I get out of Kansas City and eventually into country areas with rolling terrain covered with corn fields and other crops. My destination, St. Joseph, MO has a downtown area that is a national treasure, possibly one of the best kept secrets I’ve seen in a while. It is situated on the Missouri River which was the highway of that time period and was settled in 1843 by a Fur Trader Joseph Robidoux. Several prominent people soon realized the potential here as this was the western end of the railroad which also connected to the river port. It also became the starting point for the Pony Express. As a result a building boom soon started with fine hotels, stores, saloons, etc and shortly St. Joseph was one of the most prominent cites in the west.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Joseph,_Missouri
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| The Missouri Theater |
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| The civil war divided much of the population |
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| A series of murals in the post office from the 1940's |
July 23 - I visit the Patee House Museum which is incredible, I stayed for several hours. It was one of the finest hotels in the west when built in 1858. It seems funny to call Missouri far west, but at that time it was. The Pony Express operated right out of the hotel. Many of the old hotel room can be viewed on the second floor with signs about special guests. They also have an original Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad steam locomotive that has been moved into a first floor of the Hotel and a reproduction Carousel with many original hand carved animals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patee_House
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| Walter Cronkite was a St. Joseph native |
This is a small sample of the stuff in this museum.
After that I took a ride a few blocks away to the Museum Hill Historic District Historic with many mansions, some in fine condition and others very run down. Either way, you get the feel that this was once a very prominent desirable city. The topography of the city is very hilly everything is either uphill or downhill but it affords great views.
July 24 - I visit the Robidoux Row Museum which is the actual house and apartments built by Joseph Robidoux in 1843. As I was the only guest and the docent obviously likes his job, he followed me around for much of my visit explaining everything, making sure I didn’t miss a thing, it was great. They have many personal items of Joseph Robidoux on display, a great collection of original St. Joseph City postcards, many historic old paintings and original furniture, tools and a library of St. Joseph related books. Joseph Robidoux was not just a wilderness trader, but was also a very sharp minded entrepreneur.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Robidoux_IV
After this it’s to the insane Glore Psychiatric Museum which has lots of history on mental illness, early treatments, early equipment used, confinement methods for worse cases and lots of personal stories of people under treatment. The museum also has exhibits on native Americans and black history.
In the evening I go to the Cafe Aucoustic where I have a conversation with a young man who is kindred spirit, the woman bar tender overhears part of our conversation about how I’m traveling in a van and she comes over to tell me that it’s Ok for to park overnight in the lot behind the bar. I had two healthy conversations with complete strangers today, this might be a record ?
July 25 - A rainy, cloudy morning drives me to the St. Joseph Public Library which is an impressive building with a unique added second floor. It’s a classic old library, lots of old photos on the walls and a stained glass panel in the ceiling. I started to go up an old stairway when someone said that was closed to the public, but a young lady said that she could take me up there. The staircase was beautiful and from upstairs you could look down onto the stained glass, it was really cool. She was just delighted to talk to someone about the glories of the library, it was nice to see people take pride in their surroundings.
I then drove out into the industrial area of the city to the area that was built by John Patee who was the builder of the Patee House and the adjacent area. There is a Pony Express museum and stable there also, seems to be two Pony Express museums in St. Joseph. There is also a park with a huge ex C.B. & O Railroad steam engine.
I then found my way to an old railroad bridge in that goes over the Missouri River that looks like like an old hobo jungle.
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| The river is pretty high and flowing fast |
Next was a visit to the Albrecht Kemper Museum of Art which had a special fabric art exhibit that did not appear to me much, but where was another exhibit area with many impressive valuable paintings by famous painters or masters. I then went to the lower floor where they have a beautiful auditorium and there was a great exhibit on a famous Philadelphia artist who did a series of wild and wildlife drawings. Also I section on school children art, a few of them were exceptional. I then looked at the library which is filled with hundreds of art books and next door was small room with a bar, a few chairs, subdued lighting for a cocktail party setting.
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| Thomas Hart Benton - Custers last stand |
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| This is one of a series of lithographs by Thomas Doughty |
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| This child may be the next Thomas Hart Benton ? |
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| A very comfortable Library |
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| Nice little cocktail setting |
It appears that everyone in St Joseph goes out to eat on Friday evening, every restaurant was filled. I eventually went back to the place that I had eaten at on my first day, all the tables were filled and I found one seat at the bar. There was a band playing, the service was a little slow making it hard to place an order, but it all worked out. The band was pretty good especially the lead guitar player and vocalist, but when people finished eating they cleared out really fast.
I was raining on and off all day, but it really started to pour on my way back to the Cracker Barrel for the night. I’ve now spent enough time in St. Joseph, it’s been a most interesting city, but the road is calling. I plan in the morning to head towards Des Moines Iowa. see what I can find along the way.
