Milepost 710 Went to the Museum of the Great Plains in the morning. This is getting to be like the movie, "Groundhog Day." I had typed on my itinerary that museum opened at 8:00. Wrong! They open at 10:00 and so I gave another person my "sob story." She agreed to open up the galleries if I could give her until 9:00 am. I went out side and took pictures of the fort they had recreated out there.
Reminds me of the old westerns!
Inside the gallery.... an display of making saddles. A lot of tools & time.
A lot of interesting displays
Milepost 774 Binger, OK "Home of Johnny Bench" Who is he? Johnny Bench played for Reds from 1967 - 83 and was nicknamed the The Binger Banger. Don't you just love Google? :)
Milepost 778 Red Rock Canyon State Park
Took a couple of hikes...one to the top of the rocks to see the ruts made by the wagons going on the California Trail.
The darker sections are the wheel ruts
Also found a hole in the rocks
Milepost 787 Took a side trip down Route 66 to Weatherford, OK to the Stafford Space Museum. Tom Stafford, hometown boy, was a celebrated NASA astronaut on three outer space missions. Here's a jump suit he wore for training.
There was soooo much in this museum. One of the things that surprised me was that Tom Stafford's tool of choice to bring on missions was a good old Swiss Army knife!
Milepost 880 All of sudden the terrain changed from rolling fields to gullys and wash-out exposing red rock with gray layers. It was very interesting and I wanted to take a photo, but the highway 281 was very narrow then and no place to pull off. I figured this terrain would go for a while and sooner or later, I would get a photo. Nope! Lasted about 2 miles and l never saw that again (so far). Good thing I took a picture in my mind!
Milepost 890 Little Sahara, OK I thought it was a joke, but then in the distance I could see sand dunes and lots of 4-wheelers out there.
Milepost 921 Alva, OK rest for the night.
Milepost 936 Kansas
The small town version of skyscraper are the grain elevators.
Milepost 942 Oil rigs right in the middle of wheat fields
Somewhere close to this I saw a pasture stock tank run by a solar panel generator!
Milepost 960 Medicine Lodge, KS Home of Carrie Nation, radical Temperance leader
Milepost 991 Pratt, KS Home of Hot and Cold Water Tanks??
Milepost 1000 Seeing crops other than predominantly wheat.
Milepost 1021 As I am driving up the road, I think, "Looks like shark fins in the field." Then I saw the guy.....just had to turn around and take a picture of this LOL moment.
Milepost 1029 Took a long side trip to Larned, KS. Stopped at the Santa Fe Center Museum describing the trail and its uses over the years. Out back they had a recreated sod house.
Here's the inside.
Then I went to Fort Larned, military post from 1859 - 1878. Learned something very interesting (see below). It should not surprise me how media (TV and Movies) have influenced our perceptions on what a fort looks like and what happened in the western movement.
The fort has all original buildings, to me that is awesome. It was a beautiful day to visit the fort.
This was only a fourth of the buildings. Below are the officers headquarters
This fort was put together so well and had so many exhibits and stories that you felt like you were there. I spent almost two hours here, so much to see and read!
For my medical friends, here's an old stretcher.
The only buildings with port holes for guns were in the south buildings where they may get an attack.
Five miles from the fort was a preserved 10 acres that shows the ruts of the Santa Fe trail. It is also home now to a village of prairie dogs.
Next I drove up to LaCrosse to see the Barbed Wire Museum. I went to the Chisholm (Cattle Drive) museum a couple of days ago and I learned that cattle drives were primarily stopped by farmers/ranches using barbed wire fences.
Barbed wire is a farmer/rancher's friend that killed cattle drives and killed the cowboy. With cattle being contained within fences, there was not the need for cowboys.
Did you know there are over 2500 patents for barbed wire? Below is photo of just a few on display.
Milepost 1043 Great Bend, KS home of Jack Kilby who invented the microchip! I learn something new every day!
His statue is in front of the county court house....beautiful white building!
Well, that's the past two days of travel. I must publicly thank my husband for letting me take this trip....there are some men who wouldn't let their very capable and dependable wives do this for all the tea in China! I have so enjoyed walking in the ruts of the historic California and Santa Fe trails. There are so many more historic places that I plan to visit in Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota. Feeling so blessed and yet eager to see what's on the road ahead!
1 comment:
I am beginning to understand why the U.S. Olympic teams wear cowboy hats in opening ceremonies. It really does represent so much of our country! Thanks for sharing!
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