Effingham to Lee's Summit

It's 7:30 central time, and I am sitting at the breakfast bar at our Hampton Inn, letting Evie sleep in a bit.  It's an overcast day though not too cold, in the 40's, as Fox News plays on the television.  Why is it on whatever public place I visit, from motels to doctor's offices, to airports.  We ate last night at the bar of the Lone Star Steak House, the same place we ate last April when we met an interesting trucker. This year it was a salesman for Western products, like belts, hats, etc.  He was from Louisville, Kentucky, and has 23 salesmen under him who are responsible for the US.  We talked about basketball, at first, as he knows both Louisville and Kentucky b-ball pretty well.  He then told us all about himself, how he races stock cars on weekends, with his brother, how he started up a western store, now run by his mom, in Louisville, how he helps us his stores by keeping up on the new products, especially on what products are popular in what part of the US.  Rhinestone belts, for example, are big in Texas and Oklahoma, but no where else.  A certain square toed boot in popular in Texas but no in the rest of the States.  He also talked about how he used to know the owners of Justin boots, until it was bought out by Warren Buffet.  He was immaculately dressed, with cowboy boots, jeans, cowboy hat, belt and what looked like a small cross in his left ear.  Hes divorced and has been doing this, selling western goods, since his youth, for about 30 years.  So, our goal to have a good meal and get to know someone at a bar, something we used to love to do, happened as we had hoped.  He was a really good  guy.  We were exhausted after the long drive and a few beers, fell asleep about 9:30 local time.  I didn't even feel like seeing how Jack Reacher was doing in the latest, protecting the Vice President.  Six hour drive today, should be at Tom and Mary's in time to see the kids off the school bus.

We stopped off at a country western place called Kleinschmits, just off of Rt 70 in Higginsville, a place recommended by the western dealer last night.  It is an amazing store, with 30,000 pairs of boots, or there abouts, and all kinds of western wear, thousands of pairs and kinds of jeans, shirts, belts, you name it.  We actually spent an hour looking around an Evie bought a pair of Arita hiking boots for 90 bucks.  They really look stylish as well as function and are water proof.  I was tempted to buy a pair of boots, but the ones I tried on were not that comfortable, and I know little about a good boot other than it can be very expensive.  Some of the western shirts were pretty nice but none quite seemed what I wanted.  I guess I am not a cowboy.  We arrived at Tom's around 4:00 which was just right.