My Momma always said: Topeka is like a box of CrackerJack… sorry, wrong post…
For a long time I had in mind to climb to the top of the Kansas State Capitol and take a good bird’s-eye look at the great state of Kansas where the Capitol just happened to be located.
One good thing about our state’s capital is meetings. There was some kind of meeting about clean air and stuff.
To have a good meeting you always need:
Old ladies with signs and canes.
Cute chicks.
Women-voters (with an occasional stray man holding on to the sign).
A fat kid with the sign about what he wants to be when he grows up.
A union guy who hasn’t done any work in the past 20 years.
A bike-riding hippie with dreadlocks.
And a fat dude wearing an apocalyptic t-shirt.
I don’t recycle and I don’t want to die so we moved on to the next death threat.
Inside the capitol we got busy climbing 296 steps to the top.
The internal dome looks like this from the outside.
The legend is:if you make a wish inside the dome it will come true. But it doesn’t always work.
From the top you can check if your car didn’t get towed.
Meeting participants were still lingering on, checking the air quality after the meeting.
Inside, a group of people lined up for a photo-op in a mutually uncomfortable formation (because normal people are listening to the speech facing the speaker).
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_r2o8_8Yso
That’s the inner dome from the inside.
The truth truck was right – governor must have perished, good thing I didn’t flip them off.
Visit Topeka!
Today is the busiest day for the Chinese restaurants in this country. Of course you may go to some gourmet Chinese restaurant and pretend that you like their overpriced food or (much better choice) you can go to Red Dragon on the 8th street and enjoy some All-American Chinese food which the real Chinese people disowned many years ago. With the prices starting at $5.50 for a deluxe lunch special, you will have plenty of money left to go to the movies.
I need to credit my friend and local celebrity Dave from the Kansas City Lunch Spots for this idea – to collect or catalog the unique vintage signs that still can be found in many places around town. From the iconic sign atop the Western Auto Building to the vintage sign in front of Lobito’s Steakburger these historic relics are as important to the city as buildings, streets and parks. Unfortunately they are slowly disappearing from the landscape just like the famous White Haven Motor Lodge sign that used to welcome visitors to the old motel in Overland Park.
Dave writes:
Seriously, how great is it that this business chose to keep the original sign rather than tearing it down or covering it up with a modern one? It may have been purely a matter of cost, but it was also a good business decision because I will always stop at a lunch spot with a good old fashioned sign.
I don’t think even this awesome sign would make me want to stay at the Motel Capri on Admiral and Paseo, but the fact that it’s still standing calls for a show of respect.
I drove past this house many times over the years, every year noticing more and more inflatable things slowly taking over the place. Today I stopped by to take some pictures of the “Paulie’s Penguin Playground” located in Olathe. The front, roof, driveway, yard and everything else around the house is covered with every inflatable toy imaginable. There is a passageway through the yard leading to the porch where you can leave a donation to the Leukemia Society or buy the owner’s truck.
Short video look-around:
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLKdNtAMQUo
(Pick any two): Merry Happy Holidays Christmas Hanukkah Kwanzaa!
Other examples of local Christmas Art from Midtown Miscreant and Plog.
