Heading Home 05-29-11

I took an entire photo card of scenery today, but got a lot of 'the inside of my purse' sort of thing.  Don't know why - not paying attention.  It was a long day from Carbondale to Liberal, Kansas.  I left Ruth Powers' at 9am and arrived at the Holiday Inn Express in Liberal at 6pm, 104F and a wind so strong I had a hard time opening my car door.  I turned the car around and then the wind ripped the door out of my hand.  As tired as I was I got in the motel pool with about ten kids and did as many exercises as I could.  There were five little girls (8 or 9 years old) who were doing cannon balls into the pool.  I laughed at myself when the thought popped up that young women didn't do such things when I was that age.  Not decorous.  I'm turning into my grandmother!   After a long shower and a delicious dinner of focaccia bread and left over beer baked chicken (thanks to Ruth and Charlies Powers) I had a little nap and started working on the pictures.  But, I fear, I am too tired to finish them.  So, I am just giving you the first couple hundred miles! 
Click pictures to enlarge.

The corn is coming up well now, though some fields are partially flooded due to the heavy rains.

When I first drove in Kansas I couldn't figure out what the yellow/black diagonal stripes mean.  They indicate a culvert or other sharp drop off along the verge of the road.   These are real country roads, narrow and 'dippy' and sometimes not in good repair.

Not too many miles from Carbondale I came to these flags whipping wildly in the wind.  It was a cemetery with a double row of flags posted for Memorial Day.  There was a single row of flags on the opposite side of the road - another cemetery.  I had to turn in and take some pictures.

Isn't this great?  The wind was from the perfect direction.

I saw a number of cemeteries along the way today and all were be-flagged, but none as much as this one.  The leaning stone on the front right was from before the Civil War. 

Hundreds of herds of cows munching in the pastures and sometimes groups of horses.  Didn't see any sheep or goats. 

 Meadows of green sprinkled with daisies.

 
I took the Kansas Turnpike toward Wichita (that is the toll ($4.50) ticket on my dash and, amazingly, I found the same Starbuck;s where I stopped four years ago.  It was a fluke, my memory was only jogged when I pulled into the parking lot.  I stopped just west of Wichita at a Do-it-yourself carwash - I just couldn't stand the road grime and baked bugs that had been collecting since I left California.  It only cost $3 in quarters and the exercise was good for me.  I was going to towel it dry, but by the time I had done the outside of the windows the wind had dried almost every drop from the body of the car. 
As I said above, I have more pictures from today's journey, but I am out of steam and need to go to bed.  I did stop in Greenburg, which had been almost obliterated by a tornado just a few days before my 2007 trip and caused a detour of all traffic north to US50.  It is a memory I am never going to forget, all that debris spread across the countryside and in the shredded trees.  There are some old buildings surviving in Greenburg, I'll show some pictures in a photo album later.