God, Dirt and Grit!! Kansas!!

The morning sunrise in Liberal Kansas looked like the town was on fire.  Definitely a different kind of sunrise than I'm used to.  We stayed at the Seward County Fairgrounds in a large hard-packed gravel parking lot.  30 amp hookups were $10 per night, add $4 for water, $30 if you want full hookups.  It was very quiet and peaceful here, even when Saturday morning's baseball team started playing  (though it was raining) at 8:30 am.

As we drove across Kansas on Hwy 54 East, I just couldn't imagine what a journey this must have been for the early pioneers.  It's miles and miles of basically flat land ... as the sign in one of the small towns along the way said ... Dirt!!  There's LOTS of dirt out here and the farms seem to go on forever.  You've heard of crop circles??  They're here in Kansas!!  The watering system shown below moves in a circle, so crops are planted accordingly.  Mostly corn and what looked like alfalfa.  The wheat is planted around the circles and dry farmed.

The talk of tornados was always at hand, as Barbara explained about these trees with few leaves and lots of stripped broken branches.  That means a tornado touched down here.  Eeeeeek!!  Thank goodness the weather Gods are in our favor for a few days, even though the sky looks pretty crazy!

All along this part of Kansas, you can see evidence of past pioneers having settled here.  The houses are half the size of the barns!!  We passed the Dalton Gang Hideout and museum which I put on my bucket list and Dodge City, just to the North.  It's so far to anywhere that it's hard for me to imagine anyone, let alone a cattle rustler or thief, riding his horse across country in an escape attempt.  There's just no water and it's MILES between small ranches.  

As we passed through several small towns there was a sign that said "God, Dirt and Grit"!!!  They must have a lot of all three here in Greensburg, because three years ago this got hit by a huge tornado that leveled the town.  A few gas stations have been rebuilt, along with a couple of stores, but mostly there are only concrete slabs left.                             

                                     

Joining Hwy 400, we drove through Pratt Kansas, a beautiful little town situated in a land depression and surrounded by trees.  The first hint of water was here. 

Improvements are being made to protect from Tornados.  The slanted pole at the right? ... there's a man on the very top hanging pulleys so they can pull power and telephone lines through these huge steel towers!!

These have all been strung and the wires are drooping to the ground.  I think they are maybe 50 feet tall!!!  

We crossed the Ninnescah River several times as it criss-crossed the countryside and finally the Arkansas River.  Kansas changed from a big dry field to high plains with lots of trees and flowers as we came into Wichita.  We skirted the main city to check out Cummins Coach Care for a possible parking place until my appointment, but the gates were locked, and we see no indication of hookups.

Back on the 235 freeway to the 135, headed north to Sedgwick, we pulled into the driveway of Barbara and Tom's friend who is away in Colorado, but has two easily accessible 50 amp plugs.  As a backup, we checked out the local Elks Lodge.  There are no hookups, and I'm pretty sure there are no Elks.  The place wasn't in a good part of town at all and looked abandoned!!  There are some RV parks around, but I chose to again plug in to 50 amps and see what happens.  So far so good ... wish I knew what was going on with my electrical system!!

We had dinner at a local Chinese Food restaurant where they served everything in take-out containers!   My orange chicken was delicious!!  A couple of caches under our belts and it was bedtime for me!!

I plan on spending the day cleaning the rig and relaxing, maybe starting a new knitting project ... while keeping a wary eye on the sky!!