Day 3 Kansas to Nebraska

“Toto—I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore” and neither are the McCormicks! Left the campsite at 7:40 this morning, with a cool 60 degrees and overcast. Phil is convinced that RV park is haunted. As I finally drifted off to sleep last night around midnight, the carbon monoxide alarm went off…not sure why, but was glad I woke up alive this morning ;-) —I had visions of the RV park manager—a burly, old, tough guy discovering our bodies weeks later! Also, during the night, or early morning, Phil woke me up banging around on the toilet that had decided to stop delivering water (or so he says..I think he might have been dreaming!)…other water in the camper was running fine. Still a mystery since all was well this morning.

I 70, a long, long highway, running east and west through the state, had several interesting sites…miles and miles and hundreds of Wind Chargers. I am sorry it was too foggy to photograph. A store clerk we chatted with said they are owned by 4 different companies and supply the larger cities of Kansas with power. Also we started spotting fences with concrete looking posts, obviously old, old fences…then we decided that maybe they were stone posts and not concrete at all. Thanks to my iPhone I googled “stone posts in Kansas” and got educated once again! Early settlers here had no trees to use for fence posts. Digging down they discovered a layer of limestone, about 18” down. The limestone was soft enough to cut, but when exposed to air, hardened. They cut the stones for their fence posts—weighing between 300-400 pounds each, 6 foot long, buried 2 feet in the ground, and about 12 “ square. Some dug their own stone and others sold the posts for 25 cents each. While we were stopped so I could photograph them, a Kansas State Trooper, Trooper Ney, stopped to see if we were ok. Phil was just a little nervous and started his “fast” talking!! But Troope Ney was a very friendly guy (cute redhead too!) We talked about the posts, and he told us of a Cathedral up the road we should stop to see…”Cathedral of the Plains” in Victoria, Kansas. Worth the exit!! The Cathedral was built around 1909 totally of this same limestone. During the construction, along with raising $132,000 parishioners were required to haul in 6 wagon loads of the stone, each stone weighing 100 pounds. And we think our work is hard! Trooper Ney also told us that we were seeing Kansas at its finest, still nice and green and cool….we appreciate that!

Nebraska has an interesting landscape...gently rolling plains--mostly treeless. Now I understand how in the Cowboy movies the outlaws or the Indians could just lay down and not be seen---like Gus in "Lonesome Dove" Haven't run in to him yet btw! Saw several houses built into the sides of these small hills like dugouts. And saw many farm houses with several rows of evergreen trees planted about 50 yards from the north side of the house--snow drift breaks! interesting!

Important event today at 2:41 central time, or 1:41 Mountain time (which we are in now)---we hit our 1,000 mile mark! hard to believe!

Ogallala, NE is a cute little town...after setting up at the RV park (hope this one is not haunted!) we took out to see the local town Mansion, Boot Hill and Front Street... Somewhat rinky dink, but still fun. Tomorrow is a big scenic route day and I am excited that we get to spend 2 nights in the same place. We are really getting good at setting up and tearing down!

For all my fellow scrapbookers out there, I am printing pictures as we go, and hope to arrive home with an almost completed book! We'll see what happens!

so that is all for now from the McCamper....where the women are strong, the men are handsome and the children are all above average and still at home--but Jeremy called and wises he were here.