We must have driven through hundreds of small towns throughout the trip. A statistic about Nebraska or Kansas says 89% of the cities in the state have less than 3,000 people and there are 100s under 1,000. They were dinky and each had a personality of its own, but one thing they had in common...most had a large farm equipment dealership! Here's a John Deere.
Here's a Massey Ferguson.
Here's a drill or seed planter. I like this one because it says "Sunflower." Kansas is the sunflower state and I took a lot of "sunflower" pictures...plants, signs, billboards, etc., and I plan to make a Kansas collage out of sunflower photos!
We stopped at another geographical center. This monument is constructed on the geographical center of the 48 contiguous United States...not as elaborate as the other. Complicated formulas were used to determine both of these and it's not without controversy, and hard to understand, but it gave us a destination goal in Kansas on day 6!
The plaque.
Another goal...we just could not pass up seeing the world's largest ball of twine...surely there are others that make the same claim, but discovering this one was fun. Surely a highlight of the trip.
Mom and the ball. It was begun in 1953 and as of 2006 it's made up of 7,801,766 feet of sisal twine weighing 17,886 pounds!
Don't you just love it! It continues to grow.
Next, we drove to La Crosse--the barbed wire capital of the world, site of one of "The 8 Wonders of Rush County"...a museum complex (2 small buildings)!!
On the outskirts of La Crosse (another dinky town) we started seeing these fence posts made of rock. In the pioneer times, there were no trees, no wood, but plenty of limestone, so they used their creativity. Each post is unique and although some have tipped over, they have weathered much better than wood.
Posts along the road.
The Post Rock Museum.
Display showing how the limestone was cut.
The other building in the "museum complex." Largest ball of barbed wire? I call this my Fred Face.
Mom, barbed wire display and sunflowers.
One aisle at the barbed wire museum.
Decorative tops.
A barbed wire bird's nest.
On to Dodge City, frontier city of the late 1800s.
Boot Hill Museum and reconstruction of the main street of old Dodge City. We spent a couple of hours here.
Dad and Miss Kitty!
Famous "Front Street".
The notorious Long Branch Saloon.
Front Street walk...you could go inside each shop like at Pioneer Village.
Chair made from long horn steer horns.
Original Boot Hill Cemetery. Hanging tree is on the left.
Gunsmoke playing on a mid-1950s TV. Dad says it is the exact same model his family had when he was a kid! Gunsmoke is the 2nd longest running series ever...from 1955 to 1975.
Miss Kitty!
Saloon girls, one is playing with a yoyo.
Robbing the store!
The gunfight.
In case you hadn't suspected, yes, we did do some geocaching, of course. Here is an interesting one. The cache was a regular-sized garbage can disguised by hiding it in the air conditioner shell. The sticker on the front gave it away. We found 15 caches in 5 new states and picked up 4 travel bugs!!
Wheat sculpture in Dodge City, Kansas.
We must have driven through hundreds of small towns throughout the trip. A statistic about Nebraska or Kansas says 89% of the cities in the state have less than 3,000 people and there are 100s under 1,000. They were dinky and each had a personality of its own, but one thing they had in common...most had a large farm equipment dealership! Here's a John Deere.
Here's a Massey Ferguson.
Here's a drill or seed planter. I like this one because it says "Sunflower." Kansas is the sunflower state and I took a lot of "sunflower" pictures...plants, signs, billboards, etc., and I plan to make a Kansas collage out of sunflower photos!
We stopped at another geographical center. This monument is constructed on the geographical center of the 48 contiguous United States...not as elaborate as the other. Complicated formulas were used to determine both of these and it's not without controversy, and hard to understand, but it gave us a destination goal in Kansas on day 6!
The plaque.
Another goal...we just could not pass up seeing the world's largest ball of twine...surely there are others that make the same claim, but discovering this one was fun. Surely a highlight of the trip.
Mom and the ball. It was begun in 1953 and as of 2006 it's made up of 7,801,766 feet of sisal twine weighing 17,886 pounds!
Don't you just love it! It continues to grow.
Next, we drove to La Crosse--the barbed wire capital of the world, site of one of "The 8 Wonders of Rush County"...a museum complex (2 small buildings)!!
On the outskirts of La Crosse (another dinky town) we started seeing these fence posts made of rock. In the pioneer times, there were no trees, no wood, but plenty of limestone, so they used their creativity. Each post is unique and although some have tipped over, they have weathered much better than wood.
Posts along the road.
The Post Rock Museum.
Display showing how the limestone was cut.
The other building in the "museum complex." Largest ball of barbed wire? I call this my Fred Face.
Mom, barbed wire display and sunflowers.
One aisle at the barbed wire museum.
Decorative tops.
A barbed wire bird's nest.
On to Dodge City, frontier city of the late 1800s.
Dad and Miss Kitty!
Famous "Front Street".
The notorious Long Branch Saloon.
Front Street walk...you could go inside each shop like at Pioneer Village.
Chair made from long horn steer horns.
Original Boot Hill Cemetery. Hanging tree is on the left.
Gunsmoke playing on a mid-1950s TV. Dad says it is the exact same model his family had when he was a kid! Gunsmoke is the 2nd longest running series ever...from 1955 to 1975.
Miss Kitty!
Saloon girls, one is playing with a yoyo.
Robbing the store!
The gunfight.
In case you hadn't suspected, yes, we did do some geocaching, of course. Here is an interesting one. The cache was a regular-sized garbage can disguised by hiding it in the air conditioner shell. The sticker on the front gave it away. We found 15 caches in 5 new states and picked up 4 travel bugs!!
Wheat sculpture in Dodge City, Kansas.
1 comment:
Too bad you were too early for the Twine-a-thon! :D And did Dad score a kiss from either Miss Kitty??
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