A storm went over last night and we are chasing behind it today trying not to catch it. Anyway, it was very relaxing, meditative day crossing Kansas.
Long chat with a guy staying at the motel who used to work in Kentucky in the coal mines, but they closed down and he now works on fleets of trucks as a "wrench spinner". He flies all over the country on 30 day stints, and gets home between stints for 7 days. He has two kids in college and he and his wife are making it all work instead of giving up like most other folks in his home town.
Lots of sorghum again to day (gotta figure out what they do with it), some corn (little short dry stuff) and soy later in the day.
The highlight of the day was a little museum in Meade Kansas called Dalton Gang Hideout, and the best part was the guy who ran it. His great grandfather moved to this town in 1901 and staked his claim for 160 free acres if you lived and worked it for 5 years. And his grandmother could also claim another 160 acres so 320 free acres of land in exchange for had work. Remember this part of the country only started to be developed in the 1880's. The Dalton Gang were three brother who over 2 years robbed trains and were done in when they tried to rob two banks across the street from each other in a town 300 miles away.
Townspeople got their firearms and shot the banks up (they counted 300 bullets holes in the banks) and killed all (including the bankers) but one brother Emmett Dalton survived and went to prison for 15 years, was pardoned by the governor and then moved to California and made silent western movies with Tom Mix.So if you moved to Kansas in 1901, you claimed your land, cut blocks of sod (Buffalo Grass about a foot thick) and built a sod house to live in. The soil under was fertile but you did not get a crop the first year so you had to bring enough to eat or hunt ti live the first year. Then you could get a garden in and start some wheat the next spring. For heat you burned dried manure (Buffalo chips). You really had to want to be here to stay. Then of course they got a little carried away with removing the soil cover and the dust bowl wiped them all out in the 1930's. The museum also had an albino raccoon which was just too creepy not to take a picture of.So if you are ever in Meade Kansas, stop by and see Marc Ferguson and ask him about Kansas history. Great guy.
So one of the other people in the museum was from Kansas and was driving west and said we should not miss Rt 160 for typical Kansas beauty. So we took his advice and indeed got a beautiful stretch of Kansas back road. Crops, combines, wind powered water pumps, a few oil pumpers, lots of beef cows grazing, and a lot of big wind turbines. The whole mid-west has been installing wind turbines. Nice to see..
We got in a little late to Wichita because of all the yakking with people. Two motorcycles from Vermont really stand out in small off the beaten path town, but we met and chatted with some really friendly folks today. Another great day.
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