Some of the highlights along the way include historic apartments along Armour Boulevard,the Scottish Rite Temple, Troost Lake, 18th & Vine, The Paseo, the Women’s Fountain, the mansions along Gladstone Boulevard,  the KC Museum, The Concourse park and fountain,  and the Colonnade and JFK Memorial.  Some of the neighborhoods include Hyde Park, Beacon Hill, Pendleton Heights, Scarritt, Indian Mound, and Valentine.  If the weather is hot, bring your swimsuit – you will pass by public swimming pools in Budd Park and Benton Plaza Park.

I actually almost fell off my bike from laughing so hard, and I seriously considered turning around and giving the guy a $20 for creativity.

My photos from yesterday’s Cat 1/2 crit in Downtown KC. And here are all of the Tour of KC photos on Flickr.

More photos

The train trip was as enjoyable as always.  Coach was a bit noisy, so I spent another $10 for business class. On the outboudn trip I was the only one in business class, so it was like having my own personal train.  Unfortunately Amtrak still struggles with coal train congestion on the Missouri line, so the train to Jeff was an hour and a half late and the return train was an hour late.  But it was still better than driving, and I had the bike to get around town.

This was the first time I spent any appreciable time exploring beyond the city, which has some awesome historic neighborhoods and a decently-maintained High Street in the Downtown area. It’s sad to see so much energy focused on the suburban-style sprawl on the edge of town, but at least they seem to be making some a few attempts to improve the city’s core.

It’s the Dahon Speed D7. I picked it up at Family Bicycles in Waldo, where they still had some 2007 models left.  That’s good thing because the 2008 models are going up 20% in price thanks to demand for raw materials in China and the cost of transportation.

Anyway, it’s a great little gizmo. I took it down to the hardware store and it was a joy to ride.  It runs surprising well, especially for quick trips. Riding RAGRAI might be a bit of stretch.  And it sure has a novelty factor.  I’m used to getting some funny looks every now on then on my full-sized biks, but everyone I passed by did a double take or pinted at my little green friend.

If KC was flat, I’d ride the hell out of this thing. The 7 gears were OK for cruising the neighborhood, but I might need to get in a little better shape before I try riding it Downtown and coming back up the bluff.  I think it will come in handy on my short commute to work, riding to the bus stop, or on Amtrak trips.

And of course there is DC, an awesome city.  It worked out really well for six of us to share a rented townhouse in the Shaw neighborhood, just one Metro stop away from the great U Street neighborhood. Much time was also spent in Dupont Circle and Adams-Morgan.

Food/Drink Highlights:

• Brickskeller – awesome beer bar in Dupont Circle
• Unknown Ethiopian – forgot the name but there is a great hole in the wall in Shaw.  It’s on the southwest corner of Florida Ave. and T St. NW, really close to the Shaw-Howard Metro station.
• Sala Thai – several locations in the city, including Dupont Circle
• Burma Restaurant – My first time eating Burmese food at this great find tucked upstairs in Chinatown.
• Seafood and Crab – As bizarre as it sounds, this a seafood/soul food joint run by Asians on 14th St. NW in the U Street area.

While almost all of our state legislators are very nice and personable people, I have to say that a lot of our Kansas City delegation is underwhelming.   There doesn’t seem to be the same sense of unity and passion that that is there among the St. Louis and Springfield contingents. Those legislators are not shy about fighting for their communities and making sure their interests are represented. You can be sure St. Louis reps are fighting for transportation and mass transit dollars, while I hear very little from KC reps about light rail.  The Kansas City delegation seems to be less engaged and active than others. Kansas City is Missouri’s biggest city by far, but we have to start acting like it.

Anyway, on Monday I’m off to Washington, D.C. to repeat the whole process on the national level as part of the Missouri delegation to the National Bike Summit. It’s kinda cool that the League of American Bicyclists is headquartered on K Street with all the bigwig lobbyists.

Hopefully I’ll be able to scout out venues to return to in January 2009 for the Barack and/or Hillary inauguration.