Sunday, September 20….
Yesterday, we were going to head to Meade,
KS, where the Dalton Gang Hideout/Secret Tunnel is located. That was going to be the ‘unique attraction’
stop to make up for the closed Barbed Wire Museum. But because of Bernie’s issues yesterday,
that plan got scraped. However, we’re
only about 40 miles north of Meade…so our decision today is backtrack a bit or
find another slightly offbeat tourist attraction.
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Last
night we stayed at Days Inn in Dodge City…lots of choices but that was the
first hotel I could actually figure out how to access from the road. Busy road, unfamiliar city, city blocks
crammed with buildings....businesses should make sure that their access point
is marked. Anyway, going through Dodge City wasn’t even in
our original plan for the day, but we weren’t going anywhere else until we got
Bernie’s problem fixed. Everything about
yesterday was up in the air when the bike broke down. So, staying at a hotel vs. seeking a
campground last night wasn’t a tough decision.
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Heading to Smith Center, KS, today. It meets our criteria: it’s in the general
direction we need to go, it’s about a 200 mile ride and there are fun things to
see along the way. Approaching
Spearville, see a sign that says ‘Scenic View, 1 mile’….well, that piqued my
curiosity about what is considered ‘scenic’ in the middle of flat to the
horizon Kansas. I’ll never know because
Kim didn’t see my attempts to get his attention….he rode on by, so I did, too. Some things are best left as a mystery, I
guess.
*Google search: Yesterday, Earl said all those acres of
sorghum we passed was actually called ‘milo’.
While I had looked up sorghum several times, I had not read the term
‘milo’ so I went back to Google.
According to an Oklahoma 4-H site:
There are two types of sorghum….grain
sorghum and sweet sorghum.
* Grain
sorghum is a coarse, upright growing grass that
is used for both grain and forage production. Grain sorghum is shorter and has
been bred for higher grain yields. Grain sorghum is also called
"milo" and is a major feed grain for cattle.
*Sweet
sorghum is an important part of the diets of many people in the world. It
is made into unleavened breads, boiled porridge or gruel, malted beverages, and
specialty foods such as popped grain and syrup from sweet sorghum.
By the early 1900s, the U.S. produced 20
million gallons of sweet sorghum syrup annually. Sorghum syrup and hot biscuits are a
traditional breakfast in southern Appalachia.
Don’t know if the
grain plant looks different from the sweet plant…everything I’ve seen has the
same look, but then my eye probably isn’t very discerning.
Did a little
geocaching around Dodge City…didn’t have any luck last night but this morning
we tried another one. It was at a small
car dealership…we were in the right place just needed to do a bit of in depth
searching. A car pulls up and a young
man gets out. Pointing to a small air
conditioning unit he told Kim to ‘Take off the cover’. Voila!
Inside was a garbage can…only the bottom was covered with geocache
trinkets but it was a very clever hide. The
young kid has geocached around the city (there are a lot in Dodge City) ….he
had seen us poking around in the corner of the parking lot and had to stop
because we had the geocaching look about us….wandering around, being guided by
a GPS, and looking under and around things.
He was excited because we were the first geocachers he’s ever met. It was one of the little moments that make
these trips so fun. J
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Made
a stop in Dodge City for a monkey photo op and were approached by a couple who curious
about our trailer. They live in Cincinnati,
had shipped their bike to California (Sacramento, maybe), then they flew out to
CA to ride Hwy 50 back to Ohio. Anyway, we stood there and talked for about 45
minutes about long distance riding…the challenges and the rewards.
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Rode a bit east
again and then our route turned northward.
As we got to the northern top half of Kansas, the landscape changed…it
was hilly and rocky but still farmland…just not flat. The crops just followed the contours of the
land.
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Stopped at a Chinese buffet for lunch. The fortune in my cookie today told me to 'Enjoy the small things you find on your path.' No problem.....J
**Stopped in Kinsley, KS…the midway point
between San Francisco and New York….1561 miles from that point to either city….and
only a couple hundred less than that to Charlevoix.
**Stopped along US
Hwy 281, near Gaylord, KS, to see a bronze colored miniature replica of the Statue of
Liberty. It was erected by the Boy Scouts.
Just one of the little things encountered
while traveling off the beaten path. I liked the location…up on a hill, surrounded by
Kansas prairie grass.
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The very first ride Kim and I took together
was in the Upper Peninsula. We met in
Brimley for a day ride to Paradise. As
we took the scenic route outta Brimley, he said that if there was anything I
wanted to stop and see, just let him know and we could stop. I told him that there’s one thing he needed
to know about me…that I was a ‘World’s Largest Ball of Twine’ kind of girl. If there was something to see, then I’m
always game to stop and see it. So, when
we planned our honeymoon ride to
California, we made sure the route would take us through Darwin, MN, to see the
World’s Largest Ball of Twine. J
Here’s
what I know: In 1950, Francis A.
Johnson, started rolling a ball of twine and worked on it daily until his death
in 1989, at which point the ball stopped growing. There
was another ball of twine started in 1953 by Frank Stoeber, in Cawker City,
KS…but upon his death in 1974, it became a continuing community project. It was a 14 mile detour to see the Cawker City Ball of Twine but we had to do it...how could we see one and not the other?.
It is big, bigger than the MN version, no doubt about that. However, a review on roadsideamerica.com
has this to say about the Cawker City attraction: The
Twine Ball faces a new challenge -- someday it may no longer be classified as a
ball. Stoeber and Johnson developed elaborate techniques to wrap on all sides,
including the bottom, which required lifting their monsters on forklifts and
chains. Cawker City's ball of today isn't in any position to be lifted, so the
sides are accumulating a material imbalance. It's exacerbated by children
clambering on top and causing outer layers to puddle around the base.
So Darwin, MN, lays claim to the
Largest Ball of Twine Rolled by a Single Person and Cawker City, KS, lays claim
to the Largest Ball of Twine Rolled by a Community. Making a title distinction is a win, win situation
for both these little towns. The one in Minnesota is enclosed in a
plexiglass gazebo…nasty glare when trying to take pictures. The caretaker of the museum came along and
let us in so we could take pictures up close and personal. The one here in Kansas is under an open air
gazebo…so pictures were no problem. Both
are fun stops if quirky attractions are your thing. J
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Did wash again tonight because Kim
had no clean shirts. Thankfully the hotel has a laundry room…didn’t have to walk
far and we could sit in the comfort of our room and just check on it now and again….and
we did it correctly this time with laundry soap and dryer sheets.
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Observations from the road:
*If there are a multitude of
wind turbines in the direction that you’re heading, assume you’re going to hit
some wind.
*Many small towns still have wide
streets and angle parking, which is a quaint look.
Today’s mileage: 228 miles
Total mileage: 3139 miles
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