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Downtown BBQ
139 N. Broadway
Wichita, KS 67202
http://www.360wichita.com/tours/restaurants/downtown.html
The drive down to Wichita is about two to two-and-a-half hours from Lawrence, but it's often a beautiful one. When people think of Kansas, they snicker to themselves about wheat and move on with their lives. But for those of us who have taken the time to cruise by these proverbial amber waves (no, not always by choice), they really are a sight to see. Rows of wheat ducking one after the other - you feel as though you can actually see the wind.
After the central part of Kansas, you get into the Flint Hills, and it's very little shy of astounding. People talk about Kansas being flat like it's a bad thing. Sure, mountains are beautiful, and I love the ocean. But an expanse of land miles in every direction is something to see, like sitting in the middle of a Grant Wood painting. The earth is fertile; the green is much deeper in this part of the state.
I remember reading a book when I was younger - The Haymeadow by Gary Paulson - which talked about riding all day on horseback and being able to see the spot where you would sleep that night. That idea stayed with me, and in Kansas (and many other parts of the Midwest) one can see how that would be possible without the Interstate Highways allowing cars to slip across the landscape in a matter of hours instead of days.
The sunset no longer signals stopping for the night, the lighting of campfires, and the telling of tales. Cars can pass over the land in the dead of night with no portion of the scenery illuminated, only a few feet of striped concrete immediately ahead of the headlights. Radio DJs dictate the surrounding noise rather than locusts and distant wolves. Unless you're listening to Blues Traveler, the night air is unlikely to be punctured by the sound of a harmonica, and even then it seems doubtful that John Popper will match the mournful vibrations of a harmonica between the lips of a true cowboy, sitting on his saddlebag, taking the awesome stars above him for granted. In the near distance, a cow lows.
These images pass through one's vision like the reflection of the rolling green hills on the window. Were one to view all time in this section of the Hills, our passing wouldn't even register as a blink as we race over the highway to Wichita...to Wichita...
Oh, Downtown BBQ was closed when we got there. It's only open three hours a day for lunch. We ate at some Chinese buffet instead.
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