It was so beautiful and so perfect in Kansas City that I almost considered staying there and ending my journey after just one leap. My long weekend was full of ball games, art fairs, extended top-down journeys in the “Legoland” Jeep (The only truck in the world held together with Velcro and zippers), and scintillating conversations. The city was inspiring and grounding, a little oasis of sleepytown style that quickly became my home in the midst of all that corn – a soothing balm against the chaos of my wunderlust.
It’s just what I needed.
A bit reluctantly, I arose early. After heartfelt goodbyes to my hosts, I set my sights to the west yet again just as the day shifted into it’s full perfect glory. I drove away, bathed in sunlight, the dry open road before me, fluffy clouds lazy in the clear blue sky. With my windows down, the warm air rushed in, smelling of crisp, fresh autumn. It rustled around my packed interior, past the hanging laundry, over the stacks of CDs and into the front seat, ruffling the bag of chips I’d picked up from the gas station a handful of minutes before.
I waved a final farewell and then singing at the top of my lungs, I passed through what was obviously a force field surrounding the whole of Kansas City, separating Oz from the storm-ravaged Outlands.
The instant I was on the other side, I was treated to a flood of mythic proportions. Rain pummeled me from the heavens and the sky darkened like a bruise. I rolled up the windows and gripped the wheel as the wipers tried to keep up with the intensity of the downpour. It rained for almost 12 hours in an annoying start-stop kind of way. Every time I found shelter and looked outside, tumbleweeds begin blowing across the bone-dry asphalt. The minute I showed my face outside again, mobile homes were swept away in the torrent.
But it was halfway between Kansas City and St. Joseph, Missouri that things truly fell apart. I heard this odd tapping over the blaring radio and so, a bit alarmed, I turned down the music to listen. It was all around me, like some mad regiment of insects marching across dried leaves. And then the water hit me in the face for the first time, cold and insistent.
I looked everywhere, completely confused. Was my windshield cracked? Was my window down despite having put it up a moment before? Had I left the car entirely and gone soaring through the air unprotected?
And then something else hit me – a sinking realization about my own stupidity. I glanced upwards to where the car carrier jostled and bumped atop my roof.
The only way I could find to secure that beast to my very carrier-averse Ford Tempo was with with little metal clamps. Those were attached to each window and kept the whole thing locked down, safe from sailing off into the distance behind me. But the only place that the clamps would attach were right inside the door, against the little metal bar that lays underneath the weather-stripping.
And the thing that weather stripping is used for is making a nice, tight seal of the door to the car to prevent heat and cold from escaping. It’s also used to prevent rain from getting in the windows. Now, if the weather-stripping were pulled away from the window by a total idiot’s failed McGyvering…
Comically on cue, within seconds, the rain was streaming in great rivers from every window, pouring in its glee over everything I own. So, naturally, I panicked.
I slid over onto the shoulder of the road, raising up a cloud of mud and stones, and I brought my car to a very ungraceful halt. With complete and utter serenity, I exploded from the car into the blinding rain, avoiding freeway traffic and fell against my trunk, scrambling with the keys to open it. Trash Bags, I thought. Only trash bags could save me now.
Several hours later, bags covered the entire back seat and were tied to bungee chords stuck in the windows, hanging from the little metal hooks. Every bag was running with water as I had managed through my handyman skill to double the number of nozzles that sprayed moisture over my belongings. In short, my car had became a fountain. And still the rain came down and I cursed the carrier, the one that contains everything I could have left behind.
I stopped the car a dozen times along the shoulder of the road and braved the traffic in order to readjust, to salvage what I can. I thought about just throwing the carrier over a ravine and being done with it. I thought about just throwing myself over a ravine and being done with it.
But, I decided that the rain was not going to win this time. In rebellion, I made a quick turn off the freeway into Sioux City, Iowa and booked myself into a much too expensive hotel room, thus showing rain a thing or two. Ruin my clothes, will you? Well, I’ll just run myself over budget!
And here I am, listening to the eerie quiet outside, daring not to peer out the windows. All my clothes, to the best of my knowledge are soaked. Two of the boxes are falling apart. I am dripping with water. My car smells like a wet dog. And now, I have to watch at least $30 of free Showtime in order to make this worthwhile and make my peace with the water gods.
Route: 29N to Sioux City, Iowa