West Coast Vacation-Day One

So about 11am I finished packing up the truck, hugged Rob and Tanya goodbye and sent all the kids a text saying "I'm Off!" At the last minute I decided to take Interstate 70 as far as it goes to the west. I've driven (or ridden) I-70 through Kansas hundreds of times in my life and I never tire of it. Most people think of Kansas as flat and boring but I think it's beautiful (if it weren't for those Jayhawks I could live here!) I meant to take photos but I got caught up in driving and remembering other trips on this same road so no photos, maybe I'll do better tomorrow, maybe not. You'll just have to use your imagination (and a link or two I found).

I-70 goes right through the center of downtown Kansas City, it's often very congested but today it was clear and quick (thanks to it being Sunday and the Memorial Day holiday weekend.) Before I even got to the toll gate for the Kansas turnpike I was amazed at how green it is, how tall the grass (the goats were almost lost in the tall grass) and how much water was standing. It's been dry a few days but there has been so much rain this spring it will take a while to dry out. The far eastern part of Kansas looks a lot like Missouri-gently rolling hills covered with trees and farm fields but just west of Topeka you enter the Flint Hills and soon the trees are seen only in the deep ravines between these flat-topped hills piled one atop another. It is cattle country, mostly the Black Angus are visible in the green, green of the hills. The highway always seems to be rising until one crests the ridge and then you can see for miles in all directions-amazing. I remember riding with my Granddad one year at night when they were burning the hills (A controlled burn helps the grass grow better and humans have been doing it since they arrived on the plains.) It was amazing to see this snaking line of fire inching across the hills, the smoke was pretty potent too! Granddad liked to talk. I liked to listen, much to his displeasure! He told me they drug hot coals behind a horse to get the fires started, he'd done it down in Oklahoma I think. This drive has been full of memories of Granddad, Mom and Larry, you'll hear more. Finally, you go up and up a huge (seems like) hill and when you top the rise and start down you can see Fort Riley, the home of the US Army's Big Red One. I'm sure some of them are standing watch in Afghanistan and Irag and who knows where else. (Thanks guys!) Past Fort Riley I stop at the Cracker Barrel in Manhattan for my first souvenir , the Best of the Best Cookbook of the Great Plains. Also got gas--it was hot! The big hills are behind us and the trees are back. The next place a tourist might want to stop is in Abilene, the home of Dwight D. Eisenhower, army general and 34th President of the United States. Most remembered for his creation of the Interstate Highway system. Thank you IKE!! Larry and I stopped there last January and toured the Presidential library which we enjoyed but which crossed-my eyes with all the World War II stuff! On to the west! Before you reach Salina cattle country begins to give way to plowed fields. Black Angus give way to Herfords and I see the first wheat. The wheat is turning gold nearly ready for harvest as this is winter wheat, planted last fall. It is beautiful waving in the wind and making me think of the line from the song "America the Beautiful," "Amber waves of grains." Impossible for me to capture on film. It is always windy in western Kansas so they "harvest" the wind with wind farms. Some towns, like Greensburg, produce 100% of the electricity the town needs 100% of the time. On sunny days the wind turbines are almost beautiful against the blue, blue skies but today it is cloudy and hazy so they appear like huge skeleton trees with odd branches at the top. Eerily beautiful. Next you enter post rock country, when Kansas was opened to settlement and easterners came to the plains there wasn't enough timber to build homes, churches or fences. Dugouts of sod are made for houses, dirt for floors and grass growing on the roof. But here they use what they have a lot of, rock. At one point all the fences were made of this tan/yellow limestone that was hand-milled and used for churches, homes, even courthouses-so much work! I like the fences, especially with wheat waving behind it. At Russell, home of Bob Dole (former US Senator and Presidential candidate), You see oil wells still pumping oil from under the wheat fields, they remind me of those silly bird toys that perch on the edge of a bowl and dip their beaks into the water. In March of 1992 while we were moving to Denver our little J-car broke down just east of Russell, this being before I had a cellphone Larry drove into town and found a mechanic with a tow truck to haul us in. The mechanic recommended that we drive on into Hays as the motel there had an indoor swimming pool. So we loaded all 6 of us and the dog into the van (missing the center seat) and drove into one of the best times we ever had! We love Hays! The next year when Larry had been transferred back to KC and had taken the two middle (and unhappy) children and gone back while I stayed in Denver with the bookend kids to sell our house we met in Hays for a weekend together, I've met my friend from Denver there, last year when discussing what we would do for Thanksgiving one of the kids said "Go to Hays." Did I mention that We love Hays! So that's today, I'm in Hays.