Day 1- March 13, 2009

How’s that saying go? “The best made plans…” I left the Twin Cities an hour later than I had planned as I realized at the last minute that I was missing my AAA Trip-Tik (bound folded map sections along the entire the route of the trip). It’s an old Trip-tik, but still has the entire route I’m taking and I’ve always enjoyed using them as I travel. They come in very handy.

Last summer I had a bunch of work done on the house and had to move a bunch of stuff into storage. The Trip-tik Maps were one of those things. I had boxes and boxes of stuff in storage during the work time and I never really put everything back after the work was done. Hence, my searching boxes for the Trip-Tik this morning. I eventually found them in a box in the attic and finally left home around 0730 hours.

It was very nice driving as the sun came up in a cool 18 degree Minnesota morning. It remained sunny until I hit the Iowa border, and it remained cloudy all the way into Kansas City (actually nice for the eyes anyway). It was 32 when I went through Des Moines and I heard a few medicals and other single-company runs in Des Moines and West Des Moines. When I got 35 miles outside Kansas City I started hearing the KCMO fire radio traffic. About 10 minutes later I heard KCMO Rescue 9 say they were heading to the shop to pick up some equipment. Great timing. I figured it would take me about the same time to get to the KCMO shops as it would take Rescue 9 from quarters.

The shops are just off I-435 just south of the river (behind Station 47) and I had wanted to stop and try to get a KCMO apparatus roster from their shops anyway. I arrived at the shops around 1400 hours and checked into the office. I was told by one of the secretaries that none of the supervisors were around, but she took me back to see two mechanics, who didn’t know how to get what I needed from the computer system. In the meantime, Rescue 9 showed up and I got photos of it and walked around the shops to look at eight old rescues that were parked out back. I started to get the KCMO numbers and the E-One serial numbers off the rigs, but I could tell the mechanic had better things to do than follow me around.

KCMO has three Pierce towers on order and is no longer leasing fire apparatus. Only three of the five E-One tractor-drawn aerials still remain in service. Truck 3’s 2008 E-One 1500/xxx/95’ Tower (one of three) was in the shops (E-One #30737), but it was a terrible photo. I took a photo of Pumper 35’s former rig, which had been involved in a serious t-bone accident and took a photo of it laying on top of a wrecked car that they were apparently using for training purposes.

I left the KCMO shop area around 1500 hours and headed the 180 miles to Wichita for the night. I heard a few medicals, lots of accidents and not much else while I was traveling through the area. Just as I was about to arrive in Wichita it started raining (briefly), By the time I exited the freeway,around 1815 hours, the sun had come out and I checked into a motel just off I-35. The Wichita FD has been fairly busy with medicals, accidents and a gas leak, but no fire alarms since I arrived in town.

Tomorrow, I should be able to easily make it all the way to Amarillo (420 miles), with maybe a brief stop or two in Oklahoma City (if the weather is OK).