Farewell Kansas

On the last day of August, we set off for the airport and took our flight home. Unlike many previous visits, we had spent this entire holiday in Kansas. Most years we have had a trip elsewhere, as Kansas is not rated as a holiday state, however, it has some interesting places to see. Although most of Kansas City is in Missouri, it is the centre of many activities for Kansas and has a lot of cultural and sporting events. During the summer, particularly in August, the temperature can get around 38 to 40C or over 100 to 110 F if you prefer. This year it was much cooler which was a boon to us Brits, but very unusual.

Unusually cool temperatures given in Fahrenheit . 

Most banks around Lawrence seem to have one of these outside and each one gives a different temperature by a few degrees, so you need to take the average from several to get any accuracy.  I hope their accounting is more accurate.

The emblem for Kansas is the Sunflower and it is known as the sunflower state. Sunflowers grow wild in many areas, but what you will see most of the year is corn or maize.

Wild sunflowers

There are fields of the stuff everywhere, tucked into any space large enough around the more populated areas stretching for mile after mile in the farmlands.

Corn as far as the eye can see

 In the UK, the word corn was synonymous for almost any grain crop and most towns have a corn exchange where farmers traded goods many years ago, but maize was unknown as a crop until the 20th century. Since most Americans call maize corn, this has caused a certain amount of confusion when reading about Britain in historical works, thinking that Maize was grown in the UK before America was discovered and since maize came from America, this seemed wrong. 

Every flat space not used for something else is occupied by maize.

The maize ripening slowly and suffering a bit from the cool weather

Whilst we were in Kansas, the state lottery had one of the highest rollover prizes and we bought some tickets in the hope of flying back first class, but to no avail someone else had the big prizes.

The huge lottery prize advertised on a roadside hoarding

But I digress.

This year, instead of flying from Kansas City to Chicago, we were heading for Dallas, Fort Worth. The reason for this was to get extra legroom for the long flight where we felt the added twenty minutes to the flight would not be a problem. During our stay, CNN and Fox were constantly reporting on the latest pearls of wisdom from the President until hurricane Harvey arrived. This took all the attention from the President and he did not embarrass his team quite so much until he turned up somewhere near the disaster area and posed for the cameras saying, “A good turnout” as if he was there for some kind of rally not to see what could be done by the president to help the victims of the hurricane. Harvey created a terrible disaster, with floods and high winds causing billions of dollars of damage and making thousands homeless. It was still moving north when we flew to Dallas and we were wondering if our flight would be delayed again, but everything went according to plan.

The internal flight was using American Airlines and the aircraft was comfortable and we got to
Dallas in good time for our connection.

Approaching Dallas Fort Worth and I could see the distinctive shape of the airport.out of the aircraft window.

As we came in to land, we passed by the Six Flags Over Texas theme park, one of the biggest in the area.  You can just make out the rides just to the left of the highway

 At Dallas we used the Sky train to get to the international terminal and then eventually boarded our BA flight home.

 The aircraft was a jumbo jet, something that was the same age as Concorde, but which had not yet been scrapped. It was surprisingly cramped since we had paid extra for more legroom, so goodness knows what cattle class was like.

 On take-off it started to shudder alarmingly for a long time rattling our teeth and alarming the other passengers too, but eventually it settled down to a steady flight. Something was wrong with the cabin pressure, because TBH suffered much more than usual from blocked and painful ears, which did not get better for a day or so after we arrived home. Soon we were cruising along at normal altitude, but had to turn north as Hurricane Harvey was still making waves and we went through the fringes of the storm. This made the first hour of the flight really bumpy and the seat belt sign remained on for much longer than usual.

A map showing the flight path of our aircraft as it skirted Harvey.  By the time we were over Indiana, it was clear of the effects of the storm

 As soon as the seat belt light was switched off there was a rush for the toilets, causing a queue and a lot of congestion around the toilet area. When we arrived home, we were both stiff and tired and the jet lag did not pass off for longer than usual, whilst I found I was really struggling to go up stairs for a couple of days. I have never been affected like that before and put it down to the flu like cold I had caught whilst in the USA and the horribly cramped seats on the old design of aircraft.

I was giving a presentation for the Fairford U3A in a few days and I spent a while getting it ready. I was still feeling rough and my sinuses had started to become infected, causing me to have the sensation that I had been a couple of rounds with the current world heavyweight champion. A visit to the doctor had got me a course of penicillin and over the next few days it started to go from agonising to tender. The U3A talk went off OK and I was able to relax, but although I had stopped coughing, my chest was still sore and walking was causing it to hurt, so I went to the doctor a second time and he told me I had strained my chest muscles coughing too much. The following day I was in hospital after suffering a mild heart attack. But that is another story.