Making Kansas that much better was sharing the first part of this state with our Missouri friends Brian and Ami. Our first Kansas stop was at Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que (also known as Oklahoma Joe’s Barbecue), the small restaurant in a neighbourhood corner gas station that inspired the following review:
“It’s the best BBQ in Kansas City, which makes it the best BBQ in the world.” – Anthony Bourdain, 2011: 13 Places to Eat Before You Die
Well Mr Bourdain, we’re inclined to agree with you. And having sampled copious quantities of barbecue as we have travelled through the South, we feel we have established a firm ground upon which to make such a statement. Sammy had their bestseller, the Z-Man Sandwich, filled with slow-smoked beef brisket, smoked provolone cheese and crispy onion rings and packed with flavour. I had the burnt ends, a cut of brisket that was so well cooked, each morsel literally melted in the mouth.
Aside from the great barbecue, Kansas held highlights for both Sammy and me, albeit slightly different. Mine came first, in the community of Hiawatha. After driving past thousands of miles of farmland on this road trip, my curiosity was piqued and I had queries galore about grain farming and all things related including planting and harvesting, equipment, silos and grain bins, buying seeds and selling crops. I was so excited when Brian offered to take me to his father’s farm in Hiawatha to meet his Dad and have all my questions answered!
I interrogated a very patient Van over a great lunch (thanks Vi!) and we now have a deep appreciation for the risk and and incredibly hard work that goes into running a farm successfully. With heads full of new knowledge about rotating corn and soybean crops, the intricacies of hay bales and the differences between field corn, sweetcorn and popcorn, we headed out onto the frosty farm for a look-around. An enormous thank you to Van for your time, knowledge and insight, all of which made this such an amazing – and unexpected – road trip experience. We loved it!
So from Hiawatha to Cawker City… the landscape of Kansas is exactly as we imagined it would be like: flat and endless with fields for as far as the eye can see. The serenity enveloped us as we decided we enjoy country driving over city driving.
And then we arrived in bustling Cawker City. This seemingly deserted town, with its water tower and a handful of buildings, is home to the leading item on Sammy’s “Things to See in America” list: the world’s largest ball of twine. Started in 1953 by Frank Stoeber, the ball today measures 8,083,640 feet in length with a circumference of 43 feet. The smile on Sammy’s face was almost as big as the ball itself. I have no doubt we will return one year in the future in August when Cawker holds a twine-a-thon and residents and visitors are invited to add twine to the ball.
Our final stop in Kansas was in Victoria. As we approached it, we could see the twin towers of the Basilica of St. Fidelis on the horizon. Also known as the Cathedral of the Plains, it was completed in 1911 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. The fact that it has also been named as one of the Eight Wonders of Kansas has not impressed Sammy who wants to know how this basilica has made the list but not the great ball of twine 😂
Thank you Kansas, you’ve been terrific 😊 We now head south to Oklahoma City for a bit of cowboy culture!
P&S