Road Trip (Day 3) - Tales from the Oz land

Dorothy, from Wizard of Oz, might have wanted to go back to Kansas to live with her aunt and uncle, but I surely would not like to go back to Kansas again. True to it's reputation, Kansas turned out to be the flatest state I have ever seen, though the eastern part of Colorado did come a close second.

I left Topeka this morning admist thunderstorms and poor visibility. I was expecting to see miles of corn fields lined up on either side, but to my surprise the eastern side of Kansas was green and scenic. But things soon changed as I hit mid Kansas...there was clear skies and land so flat, that you could see miles on either sides. At points driving was hypnotic with mirages forming on the road making you belive that the road was merging with the blue sky at the horizon. Most of the towns in Kansas were separated by more than 50 miles, and one had to strategically plan food and gas exits.

Just when things were getting boring, we saw these signs for the largest praire dog in the world. Mike, my lab mate, had hyped this up and I was forced to check out what it was. So I took an exit from the interstate and visited the "Praire dog town" hoping to catch a nice big statue or something on those lines...besides I had never seen a praire dog before (it's a kinda rodent). However the statue turned to be a really cheap act of craftsmanship...and I ended up shelving 7$ to see the real praire dogs and a variety of farm animals. But I was simply amazed at the way simple and sometimes useless things are marketed and hyped up and sold to unsupecting people like us.

We reached Denver by evening, and though the downtown wasn't that impressive, the 16th street mall seemed like a very nice hangout place. The entire street is lined up with a variety of shops and restaraunts and had a carnival like atmosphere. There were horse buggies and electric vehicles plying people up through the streets. The capitol building and some other official buildings in the downtown were impressive too. From Denver we drove down to Boulder to my friend Vaibhav's place...and I am spending the night here hooked on to his wireless. Actually I am going to post this blog and join his friends in watching a hindi movie