Homan is home, for now anyway...

We are back in St. Louis! The weather's not so bad... a bit more humid than in Montana, no mountains gleaming in the distance, but hey, it's home. The folks who house sat for us left the house cleaner than  we did for them, I think. They cut the grass and also killed one of our many orchids by overwatering. I remind them that all gardeners kill plants, but they buy us a replacement cymbidium from my fine old employer Bowood Farms (http://www.bowoodfarms.com) anyway.  My own garden's perennials are overgrown and everything needs major weeding, including the patio, so no pictures of that.

But we have a few, very fond memories of our last days on the road.

There's the unusual amount of snow still hanging around the scenic byways of the aptly named Snowy Range in Wyoming...

...in July! So much snow that we see skateboarder kids -- buff and tanned, in cargo shorts and T-shirts -- carrying their boards along the roadside looking for the next ride. We eat lunch on the porch of a cute, old hotel in Centennial (http://www.themountainviewhotel.com/) and then hightail it to the east. It's the end of true touristing.

We stay overnight with Alex's cousin Kathy in Golden, Colo. Her house in the foothills looks out over Denver -- quite a spectacular view at night. And the type of coal train that John McPhee wrote about so eloquently in the New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/03/051003fa_fact_mcphee) travels on tracks down the hill from her house.

I wish I could say the rest of the drive east through Colorado and Kansas is beautiful. It is not. What it is is hot, hazy and boring. Sorry, but we simply are tired of driving. And flat corn and wheat fields -- even the Konza Prairie, as we zip past -- do not inspire.

And so our little oasis is Kansas City, where we've booked a tiny room with balcony and bath, on the third floor of the historic Southmoreland Inn near Country Club Plaza (http://www.southmoreland.com/)...

We stop in long enough to shower, then dash back toward downtown and Lidia's, the Italian restaurant of the New York chef Lidia Bastianich. It's located in a former railroad house just north of KC's Union Station (http://www.lidias-kc.com/) and looks dramatically different than its Web site photos...

...with "fireworks" overhead (perfect for 4th of July weekend dining)...

 ...a sweet little Midwest-brick garden entryway...

...and a rather thin crowd at 8 p.m. But fellow diners who are there are mostly families feasting on Lidia's Sunday night "family style" prix fixe dinners. That's what we have, too -- delightful antipasti, salad, pasta with garlicky braised greens, two entrees of yummy lasagna or beef, and panna cotta for dessert -- with leftovers to put in our cooler for snacking, later on. (The Web site prices family dining at $22 apiece, but we paid $24 -- still a bargain!)

 And as wine is served...

...there's a final surprise. The type of coal trains from Wyoming that we saw pass Cousin Kathy's and move east through the plains to fire up far-away power plants pass quietly by just beyond Lidia's patio and parking lot. It feels like we're supposed to be there -- tying up lose ends of the trip.