Hitched and Rolling

Day 4- Higginsville, MO to Denver, CO

Today we woke up at Acadian Moon which was the winery in MO. The early morning scene on the lake was fantastic and Duke got some great fetch in while Bre did some much needed tidying in the van. We finally hit the pavement around 7:45 and continued west. 

I drove for a couple hours while Bre rested and then we pulled into a truck stop to switch places.

It was here that circumstance required us to address a reality we have been trying to ignore – the inevitable eventual draining of the toilet. Though it had only been 4 days, and the toilet in the van is only for emergencies, emergencies had accumulated faster than we anticipated.

RVs have two toilet receptacle types: cassette or tank. A tank is bigger so it requires less frequent emptying, but it also requires a dedicated site at which to do so. Cassette (like our van has, which according to the van’s owner Jamie is the standard in European RVs) offers the opposite attributes: more frequent emptying that can take place in a far greater number of places. Theory aside, it was time for us to face the facts.

We pulled the cassette out of the van’s side and unfolded its handle. Jamie said that it was no big deal to bring it into a rest stop toilet but I still felt somewhat clandestine as I rolled the waste filled suitcase past the unassuming patrons into the family toilet and locked the door. Bre and I took a selfie before the process began, when we still had hope and light in our eyes.

I won’t bore you with the details but we got it done and it wasn’t as bad as you might imagine. Chemicals help tremendously with the smell. Without them I’m not sure I could have done it. Another aspect of life on the road. Mission accomplished.

After leaving the truck stop Bre took over driving. When I woke up again it was after noon and Bre had put in a solid 3 hours. It was now sunny and warm and flat with a bright blue sky and khaki grass. We were in Kansas.

After a rather long fetch break at a rest stop, we switched places and I would drive for the rest of the day. We stopped in a town called Wilson, Kansas, which is famous for having the world‘s largest hand painted Czech egg. We pulled up to the egg and could not believe how big it was. Bizzare and awesome.

While we were admiring Wilson’s egg we saw a flyer for a decommissioned nuclear bunker, which was now a tourist attraction. The flyer provided a phone number so we called Matthew. Even though it wasn’t a tour time, Matthew obliged and told us to come on down. 

The site was only a couple miles away so we headed over. When we arrived at the abandoned missile silo site, It was, as you would expect, totally unassuming. Just a concrete slab, a candy cane shaped exhaust, and a small building approximately the size of an outhouse. 

Matthew had purchased this land many years ago with an investor who passed away, so the property had been stuck in limbo until around five years ago when he decided to resurrect it. 

The tour started with Matthew walking us around the above-ground portion of the property. He gave us a history of the area. Apparently this silo was finished in 1961 and was live until 1967 before it was replaced by a newer generation of technology. The silo housed an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of up to 5000 miles which effectively gave it a strike zone of the entire northern hemisphere. The missile had a nuclear warhead 300 times more powerful than the bombs used in World War II and could be ready in a mere 20 minutes. The silo was strategically located in Kansas because although it was top-secret, the military knew that the location could probably be discovered by adversaries and in the event of a nuclear war, would be a target. By positioning the silo in the center of the continent, the military figured that in the event of a nuclear strike, the United States would have more time to react, and fire our Kansas-based missile to achieve the deterrent of mutually assured distruction. 

Matthew talked about the irony of how nukes like the one that lived in his silo could actually make the world safer. He also talked about how the particular rocket his silo housed, after being decommissioned, was used to send communication satellites into space and therefore ultimately made the world both safer and more connected. 

Next he took us down into the underground structure. The structure has two areas, both deep underground connected by a bridge (tunnel). 

The first area is the control room and living quarters for the people who worked at the base. They would do 24 hours on and 48 hours off, being shuttled back-and-forth from a military base about 50 miles away. Matthew had turned the old control room and living quarters into an Airbnb, which was really really cool. He talked about the similarities between living underground and living on other planets in the future. In both cases, there are concerns about fresh water, fresh oxygen, and food. Matthew’s hope is that silos like his can be used as experimental examples to hopefully one day inspire extraterrestrial colonies built for humans.

Next he took us into the actual silo itself. I was blown away. The silo is 190 feet tall and 60 feet wide, and looking up at its ceiling (which was the other side of the cement-doored pad on which we began the tour) really put the scale into perspective. 

After admiring the military-grade, seemingly-bottom-less pit for a few minutes we reemerged towards the earth’s surface with a new found appreciation for the engineering prowess and scale of the government’s secret projects. If that was obsolete in 1967 what do we have now? Wow. 

Duke has been adjusting to life on the road and I think we have finally turned a corner in that regard. When we approached the van after our roughly 45 minute absence he was asleep in our bed, much like he would be if we left him at home in our non-mobile domicile in Washington. 

The rest of the day was hard driving. Though i70 in this stretch is straight and flat, the weather was an obstacle as we pressed on to Denver. Operating the vehicle had my full attention in the hours of rain that continued into nightfall. Finally after around 4 hours of driving at high speeds (safe but not slow) in the rain at night we arrived in Denver at my buddy Tyler Frient’s house. I hadn’t seen Tyler in years, and he hadn’t met Bre, so our introductory reunion was somewhat celebratory in nature, with a dash of whiskey and a big sushi spread to prove it. 

All in all another great day on Hitched and Rolling.