Driving across Missouri was, well….boring. There were slight hills as we came out of the Ozark Mountains, and most of it is still green. More and more prairie grassland sorts of environments. We saw so many dead armadillos on the side of the road, but have not yet seen any live ones. We did see some white tailed deer and cottontail rabbits. But there was a definite sense of leaving the forests behind. It just wasn’t quite as vibrant green. And it was raining pretty hard. And then it really got interesting when the windshield wipers just stopped halfway down. We were able to get off the freeway to a business park where we could find space to park ( always an issue when pulling Li’l TG). Dave thought we might have blown a fuse but OMG. The fuse box is supposed to be under the steering wheel by the drivers right leg. In a vehicle where the seats don’t move much. We found a couple online videos where people talked about removing the driver’s seat completely or hanging upside down in the driver’s seat etc. Not happening with us. Then calling RV places in Kansas City just didn’t pan out, then calling mobile mechanics but none of them could help. Finally we were steered towards a Ford dealership with a large service department where they told us it was first come, first serve and maybe they could figure it out. They opened at 6 am. But the rain passed and we were able to go a little further down the road when Dave tried it one more time (yep raining again!) he figured out the wipers worked at high power so he played this off and on again game until one of the wipers broke lose and Dave had to zip tie it /ack into place. Gaaa…..but we made it to Kansas City.
St. Louis is a working town even though it had some definite cultural aspects like the Arch. Kansas City is smaller, and we would have said even less cultural assets- until we found the zoo. After dropping off King Tut at Ford (yep 6 am!) we went to breakfast and tried a short hike. The day after it seriously rained. Talk about mud. Then we found a pretty nice park with a walking tract and did a couple of laps. Now what? The zoo. Why not? It was fabulous and almost as good as San Diego. No lie. Dave was sort of sad he didn’t bring his real camera because the settings were so nice!
The Kansas City Zoo and Aquarium is huge, with very modern enclosures. The chimps have 3 acres and actual huge trees to climb! Even the smaller enclosures were built with behavior in mind- verticals for example, for arboreal animals. They had 7 elephants and plenty of room and logs to move around. The rhinos had a huge exhibit with trees and plenty of room to roam about. I was truly impressed! It took us over 4 hours to walk the majority of the area. And then, best yet, Ford was able to fix Tut that day (good since we left at 7 am) and we could go relax.
So, Kansas City didn’t thrill us but we did find a great Ford mechanic and a wonderful zoo. We are starting to understand why these states are called flyover states. Very few towns and no rest stops and nowhere to eat etc.