Atchison

Atchison is the "A" in the ATSF (The Atchison Topeka and the Santa Fe, as in the song*), a railroad that rapidly grew to go many other places, including from Chicago to Los Angeles. So I suppose when I was 5, I came through here on the Super Chief during the same summer that I crossed the Keddie Wye on the California Zephyr. I never remember which train we took which way.

This time, it was the end of a long hot day driving through Kansas, I had narrowly avoided a speeding ticket somewhere back towards Topeka and I was looking for gas and something quick to eat. But I also wanted to get out of the car and watch the Missouri River for a little while as the sun set - from the park below the bluff top house where Amelia Earhart grew up.

*Sung by Judy Garland in the The Harvey Girls (1946)