Kansas: Tornadoville

Yesterday was interesting. Everyone says that crossing Kansas is boring. I beg to differ. Mother Nature would too.

Before all the fun started, I was able to find a great Mexican restaurant in Burlington, Colorado, called simply Mexico. There are three of them apparently. I think this one was #2. I loved it.

This is what the carne adobada looked like. It was spicy and flavorful. I was so happy.

What was a clear sunny day soon clouded over and turned menacing.  Suddenly there were tornado warnings across the entire state of Kansas, with the worst ones directly ahead of me.  This is the second time crossing Kansas that this has happened to me.

As luck or providence or maybe my late Nana Mae would have it, I found one of my favorite truck stops, Love's, along I-70 and pulled over.  There was a brand new Days Inn as well.  I sat in the car and checked in on the markets and waited.  The weather reports were getting worse and worse.  A few cars rolled in with smashed windshields from baseball-sized hail.  I called it a day and checked into the hotel.

Of course, not until I scoped out the nearby town.  This is downtown Ellis, Kansas.  Population 2062.  The boyhood home of Walter P. Chrysler of the Chrysler Corporation.

There wasn't much downtown, but I did find the local A&P grocery store.  Noticed some DVDs for sale and found one of my favorite films, The Darjeeling Limited, for $7.99 and made it a movie night.

The sweetie at the cash register was amazed.  "Wow, I had no idea we had DVDs."

"This is one of my favorites.  It's a Wes Anderson film with Owen Wilson."

"Oh cool," she said.  She was holding the DVD and looked fascinated.  "Who's Owen Wilson?"

So it was movie night in Ellis, Kansas with the rain blowing sideways and the thunder and lightning and I went to India for a really cool train ride.  Sometimes it's the little things.