Western Kansas. Where life as we know it disappears.

Evenin' campers!

Somehow here in Kansas, even the short days are long days on the road. Fortunately, tomorrow is a day off. We will stay put here at Cedar Bluff State Park.

This is Western Kansas. We normally aim to drive 4 hours a day. That's about 250 miles typically. Today we drove 190-something. Here's the route: Silver Cliche' June 19 route

So, why the short day. Well... here in Western Kansas there is nothing. Simply put, there are no suitable city, county, state or federal campgrounds in the portion of Kansas that is west of here and near I-70. None. Zilch. This is the "last camping for 100 miles!" (or something like that).

And what did we learn about Kansas today, class? Well, here are some fun facts:

1. The part of Kansas we drove through today is the middle of the state that is in the middle of the country. You just don't get closer to the center of things in the US than this.
2. Three major political figures of the 20th century came from the route we just took. a.) Dwight Eisenhower (Abiline) and two from Russell b.) Bob Dole and c.) Arlen Specter. I guess it used to pay politically to be from the middle of everything. Note no current political figures in that list. I'm just saying...
3. Kansas evidently produces oil. We saw a ton of these monsters (thanks to Mrs. C' for taking these next few shots from the truck. If you think I drive badly while texting you should see how poorly I navigate 13,500 lbs at 70 MPH while trying to adjust focus and aperture. Take shelter!):

4. This part of Kansas is a bit light on trees, but they have created a new species in the laboratory. It looks like this:

 5. Kansanas are quite fond of this species and it grows in abundance here. You may not be able to see this clearly, but there are at least 20 wind turbines in this one picture taken from I-70. From the edge of the highway to the horizon. I bet we saw 300 turbines total in a 50 mile stretch around Abilene... maybe more.

6. If you like the geography in the above pic you would love Western Kansas. That's pretty much all they've got. Here's a pic form 60 miles farther down the highway:

7. Kansas has a reputation of being flat. But it's not flat. We gained 1,500 feet of altitude on today's drive. That's more than the last 1,700 miles combined and from the ups and downs the Tundra will tell you it wasn't a gradual, steady climb. What Kansas is is vast. Trees are sparse, the fundamental geography is fairly flat but within that are significant, small scale ups and downs created by a range of geographic micro-features. The horizon is always visible, always far off and seemingly falls in a plane. The road to the horizon is not that at all.
8. We did not see any old women riding bicycles and wearing black pointy hats... not one.
9. We met local dogs. None was named Toto.
10. We have not seen a single twister, although the associations between this landscape and geography and countless movies in which some character or another shouts "Twister... take cover!" has us a bit jumpy. If there were train tracks nearby we'd jump every time a fast moving freight went through.

So here we are safely tucked in our campsite (note: the water in the background is the reservoir around which the park is built):

As for the park name -- Cedar Bluff -- one might think there is a prominent cliff of some sort nearby on which a thick grove of cedars grows. If there is such a feature, we havn't seen it. And you can see for miles and miles here. I believe the name came from the old trick guy used to play on each other in these parts. Like a snipe hunt, but involving wood to remodel a closet. They'd give a friend directions to a parcel of land their family supposedly owned far from town. In fact, far from everything. They'd tell him he could cut all the cedar he wanted to make a closet suitable for Emelda Marcos if he wanted. Days later when the ticked off friend told them all he found on the property was weeds they pranksters would holler "cedar bluff!". This place is just far enough from anything and barren enough to have been the perfect destination to send the uninitiated on a Cedar Bluff... but that's just a theory.

Finally, today's panorama I took this by riding my bike to the top of the dam which forms the reservoir:

Note that both the farmhouse scene above and the trailer are in this shot. The farmhouse 1/3 of the way in from the left and the trailer and lake 20% of the way in from the right.

So, that's Kansas. We are going to look for the local sight and attraction tomorrow (There can't be more than one of each. I expect the attraction might be a life sized statue of Kevin Costner in a US Cavalry uniform circa 1870 that says "Tatonka" when you shake his hand... but that's just a guess. We'll stop at the nearest gas station to test that theory.).

Later!

SC