Visited March 3 - 6, 2022
By Marty
We're on the road again!
After a spending Nov, Dec, and Jan in Northern California catching up with friends and family we hit the road again in late January. We spent a month meandering our way through familiar territory (Paso Robles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Las Cruces, Carlsbad, Santa Fe, and Denver) to position ourselves for the final leg of our adventure. More on that below.
From Santa Fe we drove to Pueblo, CO for one night. Our lowest temperature, 4 degrees, occurred in Pueblo. We experienced below freezing temps each night for about ten days, including 15 degrees or lower for four consecutive nights in Santa Fe and Pueblo! I was worried that the Beast would not take kindly to these conditions, but we muddled through with no serious damage done.
Sunrise in Colorado City/Pueblo KOA park on our 4 degree morning
After a week in Denver visiting our son Garrett it was time to head for uncharted territory!
Kansas is our first "new" state since we placed the Montana sticker last July.
To complete our 48 state adventure we have 18 more states to explore. The map above only shows eight blank spaces because we stickerized ten states when we transited through on our way from one region to another. We always intended to explore each of the lower 48 states and so we shall!
Our travels on this final leg began on March 3rd and will end on October 31 when we pull up to our home in Livermore.
We will be exploring the remaining states in this order:
Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, W. Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York (midstate), Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska.
We will be visiting a handful of these states twice as we explore the southern part on our eastward leg and the northern part on our west bound return trip (i.e., Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kansas).
Dodge City, KS is about 400 miles east of Denver and was a good place to stop for a couple of nights and explore the town.
We stayed at the Gunsmoke RV Park just west of town. It was nice of the proprietor to give us some privacy. I guess the rest of the RV'ers had to "get out of Dodge".
Wyatt Earp was a lawman in Dodge City during cattle-trading season, spending the rest of the year as a professional gambler in Texas and New Mexico. Later Earp was in law enforcement in Deadwood, SD and Tombstone, AZ.
"El Capitan" commemorates the Texas Longhorn that gave Dodge City it's place in history as the "Queen of the Cowtowns." The Longhorns are descendants of Spanish cattle brought to Mexico in the 16th century. Between 1875 and 1886 over four million head of cattle were driven up the trail from Texas to the Santa Fe railhead in Dodge City.
One of Dodge City's nicknames was "Wickedest Little City in America."
Another famous Dodge City lawman! James Arness, AKA Marshall Matt Dillon of the TV series Gunsmoke. Gunsmoke ran for 20 seasons, from 1955 to 1975, a total of 635 episodes!
I bought a tin tacker for the 8th St, Livermore backyard beer garden! That makes 21 tin tackers acquired since we started. And more to come I assure you!
Clever sign in the Dodge City Brewery, KANSAS. While I was taking the photo an employee said to me "you'd be surprised how many people don't get the meaning." I'm sure you do!
In doing my Kansas research I found an obscure attraction that was right on our route from Dodge City to Wichita. It was the "Big Well".
The Big Well in Greensburg, KS is reputed to be the world's largest hand dug well. The well was dug in 1887, taking ten months to dig to a depth of 109 feet and a diameter of 32 feet. At the time it reached 10-25 feet into the Ogallala Aquifer.
The well served as the Greensburg municipal water supply until 1932. It was subsequently turned into a tourist attraction.
What I didn't know about Greensburg, KS was that it was practically wiped off the map by an EF5 super cell tornado on May 4, 2007. EF5 is the most catastrophic on the tornado rating scale.
This tornado traveled 28.6 miles, cutting a path of up to 1.7 miles wide. It was on the ground for 65 minutes with wind speeds of up to 210 mph, with rotational wind shear increasing to over 260 mph.
The photo above depicts Greensburg before the tornado. The one below, tragically, depicts after...
The former city water tower advertising the Big Well
The photo above is what's left of a church. The photo below, across from the museum, shows all that is left of a full residential block: the sidewalk.
Greensburg has made substantial progress in recovering from the tornado with many newer homes and businesses. Even so, the population today is around 750, compared to 1,250 when the tornado hit.
We toured the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum, which is housed in the former Wichita City Building (above). Completed in 1892 the Wichita City Building served as the city office building for 84 years, until 1974.
What's a road map?
Who says Historical Museum curators doesn't have a sense of humor? This drinking fountain was between the men's and women's restrooms, now preserved as an artifact!
Guitar designed by Joe Walsh. Joe was born in Wichita. Who knew?
After the museum we stopped for a snack at Cocoa Dolce Chocolates
In leaving New Mexico and Colorado we did NOT leave the cold weather behind. It seems that early March in this part of the country is still considered winter...
Our afternoon began with rain which turned to light snow and then sleet as we bounced around downtown Wichita. Experiencing sleet was a first for both of us!
The liquid you see on this photo is actually frozen water (aka ice)
Monday morning we awoke to 23 degree temps. Tempting as it was to stay huddled under the warm blankets it was time to pack up and head to Oklahoma. The rain that fell in the early afternoon on Sunday had pooled on top of the slide toppers and then it froze solid overnight. In this photo, after pulling in the rear slide, the sheet of ice is suspended three feet beyond the edge of the Beast...
Until it isn't... The sheet of ice comes crashing down!
The following clip shows the passenger front slide coming in and the ice atop it being shoved off and crashing to the ground:
Due to the thick, heavy ice the front slide would not retract all the way. In fact, I thought the ice had torn the topper! So I dug out the ladder and climbed up to remove the ice by hand from both of the front slides. I was relieved to find that I had not damaged the topper.
This video is me removing the ice by hand from the driver side front slide:
Next we're off to Oklahoma but we'll be back in Kansas in September to explore Kansas City and points of interest in the northern part of the state.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comment Form message? where does this show up? and why?