...The fountains run red-orange with the pulp of blood oranges
In case you haven't been to the Country Club Plaza in the last several days, this is what has become of the once-beautiful fountain in Mill Creek Park. When I called city officials, they insisted the water was dyed orange in tribute to this weekend's Nextel Cup at the Kansas Speedway, but the occultists I consulted say otherwise:
Says me: "It looks like a scene frozen from the Trojan War, with the horses leaping out of giant pools of blood."
Says Cristina: "It looks like the horse tried to break out of hell and got turned into stone from trying."
Says Burton: "It looks like Tang."
Whatever the case, the Plaza area fountain is certainly not the only part of Kansas city awash in phantasmagoric properties. While driving through the West Bottoms last weekend, I found much to fear in our god-fearing cowtown.
...The West Bottoms have come to life
It was a dark and stormy night. Brian and I drove downtown with the aim of getting pizza, but were denied at every turn. Grinder's was busy being City Market Jr. and was off limits. Another nearby pizza place was already closed. Faced with a shortage of eateries and a bunch of streets closed to construction, I proposed a back-up plan.
"We can always take the 12th street bridge into the west bottoms and try and find this hot-dog vendor near the Edge of Hell," I told Brian. Neither of us had any particular appetite for the Price Chopper brats and potato chips served by the sausage schlepper in question, but the idea of visiting a hot-dog vendor at the Edge of Hell sounded too romantic to refuse.
The Edge of Hell, by the way, is one of Kansas City's oldest haunted houses -- seasonal theme park/buildings that open up to give visitors a chilling (and expensive) trip into netherworldly madness.
Unfortunately, we couldn't find the guy's stand. We drove around in circles for a while, crossing railroad tracks and passing flocks of haunted-house goers, the screams and sound effects from the five-story slides following us as we drove through the bottoms. Probably it was too early in the season for the vendor to be out, especially with the rainy weather that night.
If you've ever been to the West Bottoms on such a night, you can attest that it's a spooky experience, regardless of whether you pay 20 bucks to visit one of the haunted houses. As far as I'm concerned, the real haunted houses are the buildings that have stood unused for decades, imposing red brick structures that housed various businesses decades ago and have since fallen into ominous disrepair.
Still, one of the most chilling images of the evening was driving on the bridge overlooking the the Edge of Hell entrance. The name of the building is printed in white on the red awning, and with a night watchman supervising a small crowd, it looked very much like a seedy hotel in the East Village, or a halfway point between eternal damnation and Kansas City, Kansas.
We drove back out of the area and then decided to go down Cliff Drive, a narrow street that trailed into darkness. It looked as though the street might be blocked off, but we were able to turn right and drive under the bridge between downtown and the West Bottoms. After crossing a pond-sized puddle, we found ourselves back amid the brick buildings and shadows of the Bottoms.
At that point, I looked up, and what I saw nearly took my breath away. I grabbed Brian's shoulder and pointed up to the right.
It was a gargoyle, completely by itself, the largest I'd ever seen. Not some pansy Parisian decoration, either, but a truly hideous, three-stories-tall monstrosity. We stopped the car to stare at and laugh about our discovery. I may complain about Kansas City being unexciting at times, but in this case I had to hand it to the urban planners responsible for this terrifying work of art. This picture was taken by Steven Bower with 120 slide film and cross processed (mixed with improper chemicals) with C-41 development to give it the crazy red look. You can see more of his photos here.
...Dinosaurs devour senior citizens just East of Lee's Summit
Fortunately, the West Bottoms are not the only place in the metro area where you can come face to face with giant monsters.
For one more week and one more week only, Powell Gardens is hosting Jurassic Gardens, an exhibit of life-size dinosaur sculpture set amid its vast and scenic arboretum.
Jenn and I drove out there instead of going to the Plaza Art Fair. With all due respect to watercolorists, candlemakers and sculptors of fine glassware, the possibility of seeing dinos greatly outshined the Plaza's biggest fall event.
Powell Gardens caters mostly to elderly folks, and as we drove through the parking lot, we wondered if any of them were being brought there by conniving family members to be fed to the dinosaurs.
But of course no such things were taking place. Unlike the animatronix "Dinosaurs Alive!" exhibits I saw as a kid, the residents of Jurassic Gardens were totally inanimate. And though I found little to fear from these particular tyrant lizards, the sculptures did attain a certain grace in their carefully landscaped setting.
We visited the chapel just before a wedding party arrived -- unfortunately not on the backs of dinosaurs, as we had hoped.
And we learned a few things. For example, that Missouri has its own dinosaur, the Hypsibema missouriense, also called a Hadrosaur. This herbivore had jaws that contained over 1,000 teeth, and it lived in Missouri during the Late Cretaceous Period, which I think was shortly before I moved back to town.
Overall, I have to say that the gardens did have a transformative power.
I turned into a brachiosaurus. 
And Jenn turned into a butterfly. Look for more examples of the supernatural, monstrous and mysterious all month as this site celebrates the Halloween season.
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