The drive...

I've been to Kansas City a few times, but never beyond.

In all honesty, I hadn't thought much about what I would see. I printed off my directions from mapquest because unlike my techy husband, I prefer printed directions. They seem more dependable to me.

They might be if you check them with a map.

I didn't.

I figured I had a cell phone and Allison if I got lost.

Which I didn't.

Not even one wrong turn.

Which sounds impressive until you consider that I was basically only on two highways the entire time.

All that to explain why I had no idea what to expect on the drive, other than I would hit a toll road at some point.

I drive toll roads all the time.

So often I have an I Pass sitting in my car.

The Kansas Toll road is different.

Very different.

For starters, there is very little traffic, at least when I was first driving it.

Along with the very little traffic there are NO houses to be seen.

I'm not exaggerating here, even a little bit.

As far as the eyes can see there are hills, beautiful hills.

At one point they made me cry a little, but I'll explain that later.

And then there are cows, cows, and more cows.

It made me wonder what I would do if I had to stop for help?

Do you jump on a cow and tell it to take you to the nearest ranch? Though I'm not convinced that there are any ranches on that stretch of road becuase like I told you before there were NO houses to be seen. And I'm really not sure that Verizons little "Can you hear me now?" man would work out here.

See? No houses. And it is a good thing I didn't need to get out and walk because Chad, Allison's husband, informed me that there are quite a few poisonious snakes in that harmless looking pasture.

Even though there were no houses, or no people, or not really any cars to be seen there was, of couse, one of these.

I am convinced after last weekend that McDonalds is literally everywhere. I would not be surprised to be lost in the middle of a desert and see one of these signs in the middle of nowhere.

And it wouldn't be a mirage, either.

Dont' you think it looks a little funny?

No town, no house, no nothing.

Just McDonalds and a gas station. It struck me as odd, so I thought I would share.

At some point along the way I began to wonder how the cows got from one side of the endless stretch of four lane highway to the other.

I, who don't really think about cows unless it is in the form of hamburger, steak, or milk, became quite concerned.

Hey, it's a long drive. Who knows what my mind would cook up to worry about if I was traveling by covered wagon.

I pictured ranchers stopping traffic to herd the cattle across. But there is a divider, and we were wipping along at about 75 mph, so I figured that wasn't the case.

I didn't figure they would take them all the way to the end of a few hundred miles just to get them across.

And somehow I knew they needed to cross. I don't know how, I just knew.

And it concerned me.

Then I saw it.

A bridge.

Not just any bridge.

The "Bazzar Bridge."

It was aptly named because need I remind you that there are no cars that need this bridge, apparently no people that I could see, and certainly no bikers or walkers, only my cows.

I was relieved that they had the Bazzar Bridge to cross on safely.

No long out of the way walks for those cows.

No braving the dangers of traffic.

Cunundrum solved.

I may not have lost sleep over it, but in that moment I really cared about how those cows got from one side to the other. :-)

Goes to show how surroundings can change what you care about.

Lovely, isn't it? They had several bridges just for the cows, but only one had the fabulous name. The other ones only got numbers.
This is what made me cry. It reminded me of Box T. And Box T closed down a couple summers ago due to the owners retiring in their 80's. It was such a special place for so many people.

And... you could walk in hills like these without fear of being bitten by a snake!