Our stay at the truck stop was brief. Carl couldn’t relax enough to fall asleep with all the trucks running. It really was quite loud so we moved. First Carl thought he’d drive to the next rest area but when he went out front where the restaurant was closed, he noticed a couple of buses and campers parked there. That’s where we spent the night. And it was considerably more quiet than it would have been among the 50 or so trucks out back. As we got closer to the Colorado Kansas border, we began to see evidence of corn, lots of corn, which brought out a conversation about the number of varieties of corn there may be very much like the potato. We even posed the question to one another, is it a special breed that produces baby corn or do they just pick it immature. I suspected it was it’s own variety. We must have been in high spirits because the levity continued with guessing why towns were named the way they were or in the case of Bovina, CO, I broke into very bad song, “ Nothing could be finer than to be in Bovina in the morning”. Carl didn’t get it so either I sang badly or he isn’t a fan of that musical genre. Our very first stop in Kansas was at the Visitor Center where we found out overnight parking was welcome at all rest areas which was good news for us. We checked the area out and could see a lovely paved loop away from the road noise with covered picnic tables and fire pits for charcoal cooking. At the end of the parking area, just before rejoining the highway was a dump station to empty your tanks before heading on your way. It was perfect but way too early for us to pull over. Carl estimates we must make 400 miles every day on our push from Moab, UT to Gettysburg, PA. The very nice ladies at the visitor center also told us where I could find sunflowers in an unfenced field with their heads held high. It was a short but productive side trip. I spent about ½ hour in the field shooting and all the while wishing the sun was out. Everything else was perfect, several acres of accessible flowers in all stages of blooming, complete with honey bees and butterflies. On our way back to the highway, we passed a Wal-Mart out in the middle of literal no where in a tiny little out of the way community of Central Brewster, KS. Back on the highway, we were treated to long views of corn which you’d expect in Kansas plus several more large fields of sunflowers but none as nice as what I had been able to roam in freely. What we didn’t expect to learn is that Kansas is called the Wheat state. We didn’t see any wheat but we did see miles of fields that had already been harvested and I suspect those were the wheat fields. Another surprise was the amount of oil wells we saw during today’s travel. And the people of Kansas sure do like their museums. I should have counted the number of signs proclaim thing the way to the Cavalry, Oz, Stover, Zoo and farm machinery museums to just name a few. Carl was only slightly tempted with the Stover factory store while I really was interested in the Cavalry museum. We even passed the Eisenhower Museum and Presidential Library. And there were so many other claims to fame, counting 3 astronauts and many collegiate championships. Fort Riley, home of the Big Red 1 appeared on our left, a couple of miles of sand colored vehicles, tanks and other items needed overseas. Towards the later part of the afternoon, I spotted a beautiful church off in the distance, the sign read St. Fidelis Church, one of the 8 great wonders of Kansas. I can’t wait to discover what the other 7 might be.
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