Kansas City must not have been a very exciting place, since all the Dutchmen did was to visit the drug store, get some "black cows" (root beer sodas) and do their laundry. Grandma also took a few minutes to write a letter home to her parents: " Dear Folks: Well, here we are in Kansas City, Mo - Got in just after dark so we haven't even looked around the city yet. We have nice rooms. We stayed in St. Louis until 2:40 this afternoon when we drive about 250 miles to Kansas City. It is about 89 here, so that's not so bad - but it's plenty warm enough. Tomorrow (Fri.) we would like to get almost to Denver - it's about 500 miles between here and there. Yesterday as we were driving from Indianapolis to St. Louis it rained and cooled things off a bit. By the time we got into St. Louis it had stopped raining and the rest of the day was ideal. The open air opera was very lovely - it is in a huge outdoor stadium or amphitheather which seats about 12,000 people and it was packed last night. There really isn't much to see in this section of the country - it is very very level and there are only a few trees that aren't much bigger than good sized bushes. Well, I guess I'd better sign off and get to bed. Love - Alberta."
This is one of my favorite pictures from the scrapbook . . . the caption on the back reads "Telephone poles in Kansas" . . . though I am certain that you cannot see it here, in the actual picture, if you look closely, you can see the wires strung through the tall "pole" in the middle of the picture. We've come a long way since 1939!
They left again the following morning at 5:00 am, after my Grandma's wake up call, and headed out across the plains. When they left, they described it as comfortably cool, but soon, the temperature climbed to 102. The describe the tress disappearing, the grass thinning, and the sun blazing. They saw the dust swirling in the breeze, which was described as being the same as what would come from a "hot air furnace". Mercifully, it would seem, the Gyspy Wagon carried them past a Municipal Swimming Pool, where they stopped for a picnic and a swim. I should note now that I never knew my Grandma to swim, she always said she was afraid of the water . . . so I'm certain she wasn't swimming, despite the extreme heat. I should also note that she bought her first pair of shorts for this trip, which I'm sure are the ones she's wearing in the pictures from the pool.
Once they had cooled off and had a picnic lunch, they climbed back in the car and started out again on the road that "lay as straight as an arrow across the Kansas desert". One of the four was so excited at seeing cacti that they had to pull over for her to pick one. They happened on a gas station where they stopped, picked a cactus, and filled up the car and their water jugs. Further on into the dust bowl they drove, through towns which were "meager, shriveled up places that looked as hot and dry as the prairie itself."
Kit Carson, Colorado was the stop for dinner that evening, before arriving in Denver about 11:30, after a very long, dusty day of driving. . . It was from there that Grandma sent home her daily post card . . .
For reference - the postage on these postcards is one cent, and there were no zip codes necessary with the address . . .
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