Kansas to Missouri

Heh all,

Well, today was what we refer to as an Earl Hoppel day. Earl was my Jan's Dad. He was a self employed Upholsterer with 6 kids (Jan is by far the best of the bunch), who every year, when Jan was a kid, emptied out his delivery step van, equiped it with bunks, and took the whole family on a wild ride. As Jan was growing up, they left Evansville, Indiana and went all over the US for 3 weeks each time. They went to Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, up into the North East, down South. You name it, he probably took them there. Well, he'd spend all his time out "there", then he'd turn toward home and "high tail it"! That meant LONG days driving. Jan always got sick and threw up! I'm glad she's over that now : - )

So, we left Wakenny, KS, and headed East, hoping to get somewhere between Kansas City and St. Lewis. We're in Colombia, home to the University of Missouri.

I'll have to repent! Kansas is not all level fields! The western part is "slightly" rolling (Eastern NC is Flat, Kansas is not Flat!), but as you get to the central area, it looks like "Dancing with Wolves" was filmed there. Not uninteresting at all! We loved to see the old windmills:

Some like this one, provided water for the livestock that surrounded them.

Others, were lying dormant, like this one, surrounded by a ranshacked ruin of a house and barns. We saw many like this. I have to wonder: Who settled this land? How many generations lived there? What ever happened to those people? Why has it been left to fall in with no care? What were these people like?

Quess, I'll never know, but it does make you wonder.

Of course, these days, the old windmills are being replaced by a different sort of windmill. We saw a few "farms" of these

slightly larger variety!

A need for gas, and an exit that had NONE close by, caused us to ride 3 miles into a little Western Kansas town, called Alma.

There are no large cities out West, but I'm sure lots of little town's like this. This is small town Americana for sure.

I dropped Jan off at the Antique Store, while I got gas. She had a ball! As I was going pick her up, I clicked this picture of a cute little house on Main Street. It could have been taken in a little town in South Carolina, and you'd never have known the difference!

One of the curious things we saw, and I'm sure some Midwesterner among you can explain, was the burning of the fields. Large acreage scorched, I'm sure for a good agricultural reason.

Something about getting the nitrogen back into the ground I suppose!

We stopped for lunch in Topeka, and I couldn't help but take these pictures of a fellow traveler. He's pulling a little more than we are! I checked the end for a kitchen sink, but couldn't find one..

YES! The car and the boat, are both connected to, and towed by, the RV!!!!!!

Look at this. The front of my truck is about 18" or so from the front of his RV, and the back is not quite as far back as his. You could put our truck AND Escape inside this dude! Wow!

Staying in a nice Good Sam's Park in Colombia, ready to head toward Evansville, Indiana tomorrow, hopefully to spend a couple of days with Jan's mom.

Goodnight.

"The heart of every problem is the problem of the heart, and ONLY God's Spirit and God's Word can change and control the heart" Wiersbe