KANSAS!

Monday, June 22^nd – We left Guthrie, OK mid- morning and drove to Halstead, KS – just north of Wichita.  Whoa….WINDY day!!!   It was fine if we were traveling in a northern direction, as the wind was “with us”, but the minute we had to turn in an east or west direction, YIKES!!! It just hit us broadside, and really buffeted the RV – I was happy when we got here, and when we checked in the lady told Earl if we heard a lot of horns blowing, to head immediately to the storm shelter!!!  Whaaaaat?  Not sure I want to be in Kansas for long!  We’re at Spring Lake RV Resort. $28 a night…. A very large park with good wifi, no TV.  An abundance of geese wandering around near the fishing areas.

 They have a lot of man made lakes around that supposedly are good for fishing.  Cute little bridge takes you over to an island where you can have a picnic lunch, uh, maybe if the temperature was 20 degrees cooler!

I've never even seen a Storm Shelter before.  Naturally, I was curious so I had to go down and check it out.  Just a big ol boring cement room.  I sure hope I never have to experience one, but I'm sure I'd be thankful it was there if a tornado was coming through!

And THIS is what we saw in Kansas:

Don’t get too excited at the scenery, y’all! Just kidding, sort of……  It actually has a kind of beauty of its own – waves of grain blowing in the breeze and lush green healthy looking corn.  We obviously need states like Kansas that can produce so much of what we use.  

Earl grew up going out in the wheat fields in Canada, and he’d grind the husks between the palms of his hand and blow the chaff away and eat the kernels.  So he wanted to re-live this experience, so we stopped by the side of the road and he did indeed do just that.  He wanted me to taste.  I did and promptly spit it out!  Yuck – dry, crusty, tasteless grain – badly in need of salt!

I thought Florida was flat! You ain’t seen nothin till you’ve seen Kansas!  Endless fields of either wheat or corn.  As far as you can see.  Several comments on FB told me there are also sunflowers grown here, but as of yet, we’ve only seen wheat and corn and a few cattle.  Oh and remember how excited I was about the longhorn cattle and how we had traveled all over TX and not seen a single one, until Fort Worth at the cattle drive.  Well, I think they must have all migrated up to Oklahoma, as on our way out of OK this morning, we saw fields of Longhorns!!  So cool. 

We went into the big city of Halstead to eat dinner.  Hmmmm they have a Subway and a pizza place. That’s IT.  They also sell burgers, wings, and some pasta dishes as well as ice cream.  They were BUSY and I can see why since it’s about the only choice!  Cute little town though.

Tuesday, June 23^rd -  This was our main day to explore Kansas…. Driving through many more fields of corn and wheat, we arrived in Hutchinson to experience STRATACA!  This attraction, we are told, scientists believe was formed about 275 million years ago! It’s the only museum of its kind in the western hemisphere, Strataca (formerly called The Kansas Underground Salt Museum) offers an engaging experience in an exotic, subterranean world.  We descended 650 feet below the Kansas Prairie into what was originally the Carey Salt Mine (to my friend, Barry Carey, are these people in your family tree?)  The doors opened to a glistening Stratadome, where we were surrounded by nothing but SALT! There was one 6,000 lb. block of pure salt!  We covered a little historical, a little geological, and a good bit of cultural history as we toured through the maze of salt chambers on a tram.  We were allowed to take a souvenir piece of salt, as long as it was no bigger than our fist.  That was all on a tour called The Dark Ride and wow, you’ve never experience DARK like that until they turn off any lights and you could not see the back of your hand! We also went on an excursion on the Salt Mine Express, an underground train that gave us an additional chance to explore raw mined out areas and view items left behind from miners, many over 60 years ago!  ALL year round, the mine is 68 degrees with 45% humidity!  The miners were telling us they love working there in the summers AND in the winters, as they get an ideal working temperature year round.  The only big negative is that in the winter it gets dark up here about 4:30 so most of them go to work in the dark and come home in the dark, going sometimes weeks without ever seeing the sun.  That would definitely NOT be for me! 

Notice the jacket! Brrrrr first time I've been chilly in a few days! LOL

The mine is also home to Underground Vaults and Storage, which is entrusted with valuable materials including the original films of classic movies! A special gallery recreates this facility and includes an on-going exhibit of actual costumes worn in movies including BatMan and the Matrix. 

There is a government program for storing documents from WWI and on….. they really realized the value of it, when they realized Hitler was using salt mines to store all the valuable art and possessions stolen from the Jews.  If you saw the movie, Monument Men, you’ll remember all about that! Now I want to see it again!  Too many valuable things have been lost through catastrophic events, hurricanes, floods, tornados, etc. so now there are hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable items stored in these vaults, including an original newspaper the day of Lincoln's assassination!  Fascinating!

We learned that a great percentage of the salt mined here goes to provide salt for roads in winter conditions.  They supply 65% of the total salt used in Chicago. 

We finished our tour about 2:30 and we were hungry, so we found out about Yoder, an Amish community about 6-8 miles away.  What a pretty little community!  Lovely farmhouses and tidy gardens.  What was very surprising was most of the garages had CARS in them!  Has Amish tradition changed? Only a very few horse and buggies, and LADIES driving the tractors!  Hmmmm 

 I thought this sign was funny - What Happens Here will be posted on Facebook - this, in an Amish community.  LOL

 I love great quotes - isn't this a good one!

We ate lunch at Carriage Crossing Restaurant, home of good Amish cooking….right as we walked in the door were the most amazing looking pies and CHECK OUT THESE CINNAMON ROLLS – They are about 8” across!!!  Can you believe it, I’ve never seen one cinnamon roll that can feed a family of 4 – haha.

I had fried chicken, glazed carrots, mashed potatoes and gravy, and Earl had country fried steak with baked beans and mashed potatoes and gravy.  He couldn’t even finish MINE, but he did do well on his!  We even split a piece of Snickers Cream Cheese Pie – we couldn’t eat all of it either!  Looked like almost half a pie!  Gracious, are Amish people generally heavy or do they work it off because of so much manual labor?  

Anyway, we waddled out of there, and then drove to Newton, home of MARK SIBLEY!  Mark, I’m shocked and disappointed we weren’t greeted with a large billboard claiming “Home of Mark Sibley!” – That’s the least they could have done!!! 

We had to find a Lowe’s so we could buy a new step ladder.  Funny story, at least funny to me, not too funny to Earl.  We were at a park that had a rule about having anything outside your RV, so any ladders had to be stored underneath.  Earl uses it not only to wash the RV but to put up the screen over our windshield when we’re parked….allows us to see out, but no one to see in.  He got the car all hooked up and he went through his check list when we left yesterday morning.  I go through my checklist of everything that has to be done inside – only takes me about 15 min max, and takes him maybe 20-25. We left about our usual 10:30 a.m. time frame and had only driven forward a bit, when Earl, with the most chagrined look and voice said, “Oh NO, I’ve crushed the ladder!”   We don’t normally have it underneath, but in a bin, so he didn’t have it on his checklist and we drove all the way over it the entire length of it!  It was the flattest ladder you’ve ever seen!  Like a pancake!  Earl said it looked like a cookie sheet. I so wish I had taken a photo! It struck me funny and I was laughing uproariously, mostly at his shocked expression and dismay.  I have a weird sense of humor I guess.  Can you hear me laughing all over again as I type this?  We just walked it right over to the dumpster and went on our merry way.   So…. that’s why we had to find a Lowe’s for a new ladder….and that’s the rest of the story, said in my Paul Harvey voice.

I have been wanting to see one of these oil derricks (is that what you call them?) up close, so we pulled off the road and went and checked this one out.  Interesting!  They're just all over Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, right out in the middle of fields, and just going.  Wonder how much oil?  What do they cost? How long do they last?  This one seemed terribly corroded, but was just toiling away!

We got home, where it was hotter than blue blazes!  98 degrees and not one tiny bit of shade on our site, so our A/C is working overtime, and I just THANK THE GOOD LORD for A/C!!!! Headed out in the morning just for an overnighter, we probably won’t even unhook. Then on to Nebraska!  Can’t wait to see our friends, Harold and Anita Smith and their beautiful farm we’ve heard so much about over the years!