Day Thirtyone

Oak Grove, MO to Danville, MO
June 25th, 2009

High Point of the Day....
Low Point of the Day......
Thomas Hart Benton
Oh, you know...
Miles Traveled Today
Total Miles Traveled
The Bus Playlist
Weather
160 in the bus, 75 in the rental
6599
NPR
Sunny hot and humid, high 90s, heat index in the low 100s
Price of Gas 
(average per gallon)
Wildlife
Night's Lodging
Where this Page was Uploaded
2.45
Cows, Horses, and Fireflies
Graham Cave State Park, MO
Lexington, KY

Daily Didactic
Our day started again in the relative komfort of our kabin with the AC turned up to eleven. Fortunately, with our rental we were able to sleep in a bit and didn't need to be at a mechanic early. We enjoyed the kreature komforts of the KOA and eventually headed to south Kansas City late morning for an update. When we got there the bus was high on the rack and the engine was coming out. Danny hadn't found the problem yet and was working on inspecting the clutch. The bus in good hands, we headed off for some opportunistic touristing.

On our drives back and forth to Brown's we had driven past two big signs repeatedly, one for the Kansas City Zoo and one for the Jazz Museum. We started with the Zoo, because obviously a couple of Alaskans ought to walk around outside for a couple of hours with the "heat index" near 110 degrees. In spite of ourselves, the zoo was interesting and full of a lot of animals like ourselves that probably should not have been out in the sun in Kansas City. We can't say we are big fans of incarcerating animals for our enjoyment, but we thank those who setpped up today. Especially the chimpanzees.

From there we drove up to the very cool and much cooler Kansas City Jazz Museum and poked around for a while. Eventually Brian got a call from Danny, who said the apparent culprit was not the clutch, but the pilot bearing. A very small part, that makes a very big difference. It appeared the engine would make it's way back in by our 6:00 rental car drop off date, so we headed back down to Brown's. The bus was miraculously back on the road at 5:30, driving very well, and we dropped of the rental just before closing.

Not wanting to take anymore chances on the bus's infatuation with Kansas City we raced toward St. Louis, stopping midway at the dark but seemingly promising Graham Cave State Park for the night.


Daily Pictures (Slide Show)

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Another unusually comfortable morning The Kansas City Zoo, 110 degrees with the heat index
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Theresa's tortoise friend Flamingos high stepping
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An elephant mudding up We didn't see any other jokes around, so really?
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Brian at the half elephant exhibit Partial hippo
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We're not sure the vertical stripes are working for the middle one Hairy eared rhino
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Meerkats, the one on the right seems oddly alert The warthog looks like it is in heels to us
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The Kansas City Jazz Museum The Blue Room
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The Gem theater across the street Missouri welcomes us, as it has been for days
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Old barn Billboards loosing impact in numbers


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