Crawford State Park, Furlington
Sunday, 25 October 2020
Last night I gave the dogs the last Milk-Bones I had, which meant I had a potential crisis. This morning I used the last of my milk, which is also important, but not as much as the dog treat problem. I always give the dogs a bone at bedtime, and of course routine is important to kids (and to many adults, including me). Provides a sense of security.
So what that meant was that before hitting the road I had to drive to the other side of Wellington to the only grocery store I know of in town. And there I got lucky, because if they'd been out (I got the last box) I'd've had to stop at any grocery store I could find anywhere along the way today. And I was glad not to have that extra chore on my mind all day.
On the road
I spent much of today's drive on US 160. When I passed the turn-off to get to the town of Belle Plaine (pop. about 3,000), I remembered the town of Pretty Prairie (pop. about 650) on the other side of Wellington and wondered if there were some reason buried in history why these 2 towns, so close together (relatively speaking), would have such similar names.
Just outside Oxford (pop. 1,000), established in 1871 they say, I saw a very large pecan orchard. I don't think of pecans as being a Kansas product, but then this is southern Kansas.
At Winfield I saw a sign saying I should turn south to Arkansas City (KS) for the Oklahoma Strip Land Rush Museum. I hadn't realized this part of Kansas had been included in that strip that also included the OK Panhandle, I think, that was the subject of those incredible pictures we've seen of people lined up in 1893 ready to charge off to claim a chunk of land for themselves. But I had to make route choices and couldn't fit Arkansas City in. Another trip.
Dexter
My first goal for the day was the town of Dexter, because of my puppy dog of course. This town is definitely not on the beaten path - I had to turn off the US highway to a state road, and then turn off that to get to the town - so I expected a really tiny place. It is indeed tiny (est. pop. 275) but it quite clearly has a vibrant life to it.
A sign by the state road proclaims Dexter as "Where Helium Was Discovered." Apparently, that's true. An oil exploration well that was drilled here in 1903 found natural gas that was different from anything they'd seen before. Over time, they figured out that it was helium, which had already been discovered in other parts of the world. But they hadn't come up with a use for it until 1917 when they thought of using the nonflammable helium in airships.
The town celebrates this discovery in several ways, this park, for example.
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Dexter Helium Park
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The town is only about 4 blocks wide and 6 blocks long, and you can get a bit of a feel for it in these photos.
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Main Street
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but big enough for a lodge
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What I didn't know when I was there is that it's the home of the Henry Candy Co. - "world famous" they say, because of the Oh Henry! candy bar. It's been a family business for 50 years and they have more than this one factory. I saw no signs of it here, but it's probably a little way farther down the state road. I don't remember the Oh Henry! candy bar myself but have seen it mentioned in old novels (it dates back to the early 1900s).
Back on the road
I had to backtrack to get back on US 160, which led me through the town of Burden, whose odd name is rivaled only by its odd nickname: "Gateway to East Central Cowley County."
From there all the way to Independence, I saw horses - lots of horses - and llamas and cows. I saw much more grazing land than in other parts of the state - it looked like there was at least as much grazing land as cropland. Lots of horses. All day I saw horses. I never thought of Kansas as an equine center, but they have a bunch of them.
I saw a deer bound across the road a distance in front of me and slowed way down in case there were others that would follow and were waiting until I got closer, in that semi-suicidal way critters seem to have.
The tiny town of Grenola (pop. less than 200), just off the highway, advertises the Grenola Elevator Museum as an attraction. For being so small, Grenola shows great civic pride and its website says it was once the "largest single cattle shipping point in the United States." It also says it's "the resting place" for a well-known (long ago) character actor, Eugene Pallette. I've never heard of him but do know some of his movies: The Three Musketeers (1921), Topper (1937), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939). So even a small town can have a place in history.
Farther down the road, Moline says it's the Home of Kansas's oldest swinging bridge, and has signs in town pointing the way to the bridge. I didn't go but have learned it's a footbridge built in 1904.
Longton claims the title of White-tailed Deer Capital of Kansas.
Along the way today I've seen about as many Trump signs and flags as I've seen horses, which is a lot.
Independence
This town of about 8,600 was named in honor of the Declaration of Independence.
As I drove into town I passed a business with a sign that read:
Fleas An
Tiques
At a restaurant I saw this holiday sign: "Do you know what skeletons order at restaurants? Spare ribs."
I was aiming for Riverside Park, where I'd heard there's a carousel that's still operational. The park turned out to be huge - much bigger than I'd have expected from a town this size. At the edge of the park is the city cemetery, and it seemed big enough to be holding every person who died here since its founding in 1869.
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Riverside Carousel
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I'm sorry to say the view in this photo was as close to the carousel as I could get. It dates back to 1950 and still operates on weekends from 1-4 PM. I got to town before noon and walked the dogs a couple of times and had lunch and waited, but it never opened. I don't know if that's because of the virus or because of the weather (very chilly and windy and overcast and just downright unpleasant). But the website didn't say anything about it being open only if some condition was right. They only charge 5¢ for a ride, making it as good a deal as advice from counselor Lucy (in Peanuts) and probably much more effective at producing a good mood. Too bad.
Next to the carousel is a veterans memorial which was different from any I've seen. For one thing, they started back with the nation's first war - the War of Independence.
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enlarged detail
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Then, skipping a few wars (there was a stone memorial nearby for those, such as the Spanish-American War) they came to the next major war.
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detail enlarged
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I guess this shiny surface is the latest trend in public signs because I've been seeing it used all over. But the shininess makes it almost impossible to photograph, because it reflects so much - trees, pet dogs, me - and the reflections cover up the underlying image. I did the best I could on these, because they seemed pretty fair summaries of the conflicts (except for that bit above about states' rights being a cause of this war, when the only right the states wanted to have that they weren't getting was the right to own slaves).
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detail enlarged
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top half of detail
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This war was complicated by being conducted in 2 very different parts of the world at the same time, so I split the sign into the two parts to make it more readable.
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detail enlarged
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detail enlarged
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I thought the quotation for this war was especially poignant. I also think if they're going to include Pres. Ford, they should also have Pres. Truman and Pres. Kennedy, because this thing started a long way back.
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top half of detail
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bottom half of detail
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These wars were for very different reasons and very different times. I'm a little surprised they lumped them together, what with the 2nd batch being in response to 9/11. Anyway, that's why I enlarged them separately.
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detail enlarged
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I was glad I'd come to Independence, despite my disappointment in the carousel not operating.
I was also interested to note that there were more signs for Biden than for Trump here.
Back on the road
I've been seeing a lot of hawks today - especially Red-tailed Hawks. I've also been sorry to see lots of dead animals on the road. Raccoons, armadillos, possums, a deer, people's pets, a wolf (I think). A whole lot of them.
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Purple Martin
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I took a slight side trip off the main road to travel through the town of Parsons, which claims to be the Purple Martin Capital of Kansas. The town has put in a concerted effort to encourage Purple Martins to come here to breed. Apparently these birds prefer manmade homes to natural ones, so the folks here have been obliging. Just this year residents started substituting houses that were designed to keep out Starlings, which were usurping the martins' nesting places, and this change is expected to help the population. Purple Martins see safety in numbers, so the town has obliged by putting up houses close together.
Speaking of being close together, I saw a house with both a Trump sign and a Biden sign. They were definitely in the same yard. That must be an interesting household.
Actually, in the town I saw more Biden signs than Trump signs. Southeast Kansas seems to be a more liberal area than most of the state. At least, according to the yard signs.
South of Parsons down near the Oklahoma border is the small town of Chetopa, which claims to be Catfish Capital of Kansas. These little towns really go in for claims to uniqueness.
I saw a cow galloping - actually galloping - to catch up with the rest of the herd. Considering the way a cow is made, I'd think that'd be uncomfortable for them.
I've been crossing plenty of rivers and creeks and have been seeing plenty of water in all of them. That seems so odd, considering that most of Kansas has been in drought status for quite a while now.
Near Strauss, I saw a whole herd of that kind of cattle that has horns. All of them.
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Snow Goose
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Ross's Goose
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These look like the same bird, don't they. And it's true that they occasionally interbreed and the bird book says the Ross's Geese often hang out with the Snow Geese. But they're biologically different birds. Snow Geese are somewhat larger than the Ross's Geese (26"-33" vs. 23").
I'm mentioning this because I passed a body of water and could have sworn I saw a very large flock of some largish white bird. I was sure they must be geese, rather than swans, because their necks weren't long enough for swans - which was about all the detail I could see from a distance. And sure enough, the bird book says eastern Kansas is a wintering spot for both these species. So there you are.
I passed the miniscule town of Beulah, which was originally settled by Methodists in 1874. Their post office was discontinued in 1955 and the town is unincorporated. Too bad, really, because I imagine that part of history may be lost. You know, why did the Methodists found the town and why isn't it still there?
By this time I was heading due north on K-7. I started seeing large fields with new planting coming up. Winter wheat?
Crawford State Park
Both the park's website and Google told me I should turn right at K-277 to enter the park. I found the usual highway signs that said turn here for the state park. But if that road truly was K-277 (a state highway, after all), it was completely devoid of signs saying so. What's more, the route it led me on went past the campground office (closed) over a spillway with WARNING signs all over (because of water that might be coming over the spillway), and then across a narrow dam to the campgrounds.
Because of this inauspicious route, and because of no signs, and because it was nearly a mile short of where Google said I should turn, I assumed I'd come in a back entrance. But the next day when I left, I saw no sign anywhere along the way for K-277 or for another entrance to the park. Apparently they expect all campers to cross that spillway, both to get in and to get out. What if there's high water? Are the campers trapped in the campground? Weird.
On the other hand, I saw 2 Great Blue Herons and a male Belted Kingfisher at the dam, so that was nice.
When I was driving around the campground looking (unsuccessfully) for the dump station ( finally found it back on the other side of the spillway), I came upon an adult deer and 3 deer that had obviously been born earlier this year, though they'd lost their fawn spots. I came nearly to a halt and inched ahead, and even though they saw us, they kept on eating until we were almost level with them. Dexter was very interested. I'd never heard of deer having triplets so I looked it up and learned that it's not at all uncommon for deer to have triplets when their numbers are balanced with a high-quality habitat. Which must be what they have here.
It was also nice to get the heads-up that there are plenty of deer here for me to worry about when I give the dogs their early walk in the morning.
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