Amber waves of grain

Last week, Hal and I drove to Kansas City, MO to watch the first place Sox (the Sox with Alexei Ramirez, not Manny Ramirez, for you confused East Coasters) pummel the last place Royals. Well, it wasn't exactly the pummeling we hoped for, but the games were exciting in any case. We saw games 2 and 3, after the Sox won game 1 in 13 innings. Despite a pitiful performance by Sox starting pitcher Javier Vazquez, the Sox came back to win 7-6, powered by two (2) Carlos Quentin home runs and a balk. Yes, the game was won on a balk.

Game 3 was less satisfying for a Sox fan. After 7 quick innings of classic Mark Buehrle (Sox ace) vs. KC ace Zack Greinke, the Sox held a narrow 1-0 lead from a Jermaine Dye solo homer. The Sox imploded in the 8th inning, missing a key double play by throwing the ball into the dugout (for some reason no error was recorded here, so Buehrle is credited with earned runs) and giving up (drumroll) an inside-the-park home run. I've never seen one of those before, live or on TV, but it's not a good feeling when the other team pulls it off. Sox lose 4-1.

Along with getting to watch some good baseball, we had an opportunity to explore the vast heartland of America. After driving through the flat cornfields of Illinois for three hours and crossing the Mississippi, we got to spend most of the drive through the slightly-less-flat cornfields of Iowa. Unlike Illinois, you can't see for many miles in every direction thanks to some gently rolling hills. For some evolutionary reason, I'm pretty sure humans have adapted to feel more comfortable in the hills. There's something vaguely depressing about seeing non-stop corn for 20 miles in every direction. The highlight of our trip was stopping at the world's largest truckstop. There were a lot of trucks there.

On Thursday, our day between games, we got to explore Kansas City and the surrounding area. Kansas City was surprisingly nice - it seemed like a mini-Chicago, clean and well maintained with a very modern feeling. Perhaps it was because we were there at 10:30 in the morning when everyone was inside working, but it was a bit eerie how few people we saw.

After briefly exploring KC, we crossed the Missouri River into Kansas proper and explored Kansas "Scenic Byway" 7, which follows the Missouri north. The road was surprisingly scenic, and the rolling hills deserve the title of "hills" more than those of Iowa. Eventually we came across a sign for "4-state lookout" and decided to follow it up a small hill to a nice high point overlooking Iowa, Nebraska, and Missouri (above). At this point we were only 4 miles from Nebraska, so of course we followed the road north so I could pick up my 41st state.

We returned to KC in time for some world-famous BBQ at Oklahoma Joe's, the premier BBQ-in-a-gas-station joint in the world. Delicious. We stayed the last night at the Drury Inn, which was very proud of their prestigious ranking by J.D. Power as the "highest customer satisfaction among mid-scale hotel chains with limited service." Apparently nobody had the courage to stand up to Mr. Drury and tell him that his name sounds like a word with negative connotations and might not be the best name for a hotel chain.

Bottom line: Sox win some, lose some. Amber waves of grain not quite as exciting as purple mountains' majesty of Colorado, but beautiful in their own way.