Friday, 9 October 2020
When I tried to walk the dogs at 4:00ish in my overnight state campground, a dog with a deep, loud bark made such a racket I was afraid it would wake up the whole campground. It certainly got some other campers' dogs to bark too. I don't know what kind of trash talk it was putting out, but my dogs sure did and got really excited and bounced around so much, I finally had to abort our walk. I could barely control them, and that other dog just wouldn't quit barking. Either its owner wasn't there or couldn't control the dog, but the result was the same.
When we went out again at 6:00, the dog was silent and we could walk in peace. But even with that we couldn't walk very far because it was still dark and that campground was laid out by a drunk squirrel where the roads wound around and ran into each other at odd angles and curved all over the place so even with a flashlight I couldn't figure out where we were going and when we were actually walking through someone's campsite. Dry leaves were thick on the ground so we made a racket when we moved. And I was convinced a nearby area was prime for deer so restricted our walk to our immediate camping area. The dogs really got shortchanged on that walk.
Late yesterday I found a flea on me. I didn't even recognize what it was at first, it's been so long since I've seen one. And I wouldn't have thought this would be the weather for them. But there it was. I was extra glad I'd managed to find someone to give Lily her flea medicine recently. And of course the dogs get dosed twice a month as part of their heartworm and tick pills. Not sure how that flea got inside and got on me but hope I'm not the carrier.
Before we left the campground, I took them to a nearby boat launch area where there were various facilities and parking areas for us to get a bit more walking in.
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| today's route |
Google wanted me to drive for 20 miles on gravel roads before reaching US 36. I voted no, and went on paved roads back the way I'd gotten to Lovewell State Park yesterday.
I passed through a town called Scandia (pop. 370), that was settled in 1868 by Swedes fleeing famine in Sweden. I haven't been to Sweden, but I'm guessing Kansas was a jolt.
I don't think I've seen one lightning rod in this state, which seems odd to me. But I guess KS is known more for tornadoes and floods than for lightning.
I ended up following a horsetrailer that was too wide for me to see anything in front of it. That turned out to matter because the trailer also had no brake lights, and my RV has a fairly substantial stopping distance, so I nearly ran into it. That's when I could see the 2 vehicles in front of the trailer did have brake lights, which were on as they made a turn.
The town of Belleville (pop. 1,887) says it's "At The Crossroads Of America" because US 36 and US 81 meet here. US 36 runs from Rocky Mountain National Park in CO to eastern Ohio. US 81 runs from Fort Worth, TX, to the Canadian border in North Dakota. So yeah, I can see where Belleville gets its claim.
I passed through the towns of Formoso (not Formosa) and Cuba. And ended up behind a pickup truck that also had no brake lights. I'm going to guess Kansas doesn't do annual car inspections.
Strong crosswinds again today nearly blew us off the road a couple of times and often blew us from side to side of our lane. I had to work pretty hard to keep us moving forward.
Passing through the town of Washington, I started to see signs telling me I was on the Pony Express Highway. Apparently from here east to St. Joseph, MO, is part of the route the Pony Express riders used on their way to California.
I spent the morning driving US 36 almost all across northern Kansas. I saw rolling hills, trees quite clearly following a stream or creek, fields with different crops divided by trees or fences. Some fields were green with a new crop, some yellow with corn or tan with grain, dark brown with newly plowed earth. I'd expected monotony but instead found this area to be surprisingly colorful.
I passed a sign saying I could turn off the road to see a historical marker about a pony express station. I didn't do it but have learned that a few miles north of the highway is/was the Hollenberg Pony Express Station State Historic Site. This was one of the places where the riders changed horses on their way west. I understand it's the only such station that still stands in its original location.
For part of the drive, the road had a wide grass median, and I saw a coyote standing there, looking at something in the grass. It wasn't a sight I expected.
In Marysville, I was surprised, after passing a building that had blocked my view, to suddenly see a statue of a running horse and rider right by the road. I of course assumed it had something to do with the Pony Express and wanted to stop to take a photo, but couldn't find somewhere to do it easily so kept going. I found this photo on the internet.
I went through Home, aka Home City, with an estimated population of about 550. Their slogan: There's No Place Like Home. Actually, L. Frank Baum never named the Kansas town Dorothy's supposed to be from and, in fact, was describing the part of South Dakota where he grew up. So Home, KS, might as well claim the slogan as anyone.
The farther east I went, the more frequently I saw anti-abortion signs. There were lots of them, almost all with pictures of cute White babies on them.
We took a break in Seneca, where I had trouble finding anywhere for us to park and walk around, until I happened to notice a large empty parking area at the high school. That turned out to be parking for the football field and, as far as I could tell, the kids were having a pep rally in the stands. To me the day was chilly and windy and not weather I'd want to be standing around in, but the kids didn't seem bothered, even without jackets. In fact, when we'd first pulled up, it looked like they were having a fire drill, the way a lot of kids were filing out of the school and standing by the side of the street for a time. Of course, given the insanity that seems to be prevailing in our country lately, it could have been an active shooter drill.
I passed a yard sign that said:
NRA
Defend Freedom
Defeat Biden
Vote Trump
I've been seeing a lot of dead critters on the roads in Kansas. A real variety from skunks to raccoons to deer.
I made a side trip into the town of Hiawatha (pop. 3,100), City of Beautiful Maples. The street I turned onto seemed to be one of the old main streets of town, with many old trees and old houses and some of the city buildings. Nice old downtown, still intact. And they indeed have maples, though they were still in the early stages of changing colors. A few were full red or yellow, while more were in between, but most were still mostly green. Probably be gorgeous in a couple of weeks.
The road crossed a railroad track and I noticed everybody ahead of me took the track at exactly the same place and the same angle. Being no fool (usually) and valuing local knowledge, I followed suit and could tell why they had.
In the town of Horton, south of Hiawatha, I was negotiating a 90° turn in US 73 and passed a historical marker that looked interesting but I couldn't get back to. It explained that was a key site in the first Rural Electrification Administration project in Kansas, the FDR program that brought electricity to rural America. I found this photo of it on the internet.
From Horton I went east to Atchison and continued to fight the very strong crosswind I'd been getting hit with all day. And it continued to push me so hard I almost went off the road a couple of times. I was steering like you do in a skid - steering into the wind - with a noticeable turn of the steering wheel just to stay in my lane. It was tiring me out.
Atchison
Birthplace of Amelia Earhart, as they remind you frequently throughout the area.
You can see a statue at the far right of my photo:
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| the plaque is enlarge at right |
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| plaque from the statue |
I didn't take a very close look at the whole building until I saw this historical marker.
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| The building is so long I couldn't quite fit it all into the photo. |
I understand they've got a museum inside but didn't bother to check whether they were open during this virus or not - I didn't think it was worth the risk.
But the dogs and I walked around the area a bit and found that Lewis & Clark had beaten us to it.
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| front of the marker |
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| plaque on the back of the marker |
Near this marker is the stream they'd christened "4th of July 1804 Creek." Doesn't just trip off the tongue, but a rose by any other name . . . .
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| This is the creek, though it's no longer 12 yards wide. |
Back on the road
Google's directions to the railroad station had been wrong in some way but I'd managed to find it by luck. From there, I took the wrong road, partly because Google's directions weren't clear and partly because I misunderstood what they said. So instead of driving directly down to Topeka, which would have taken an hour (per Google), I ended up over in the Kansas City area and added maybe 2 extra hours to the trip. Plus, I ran into a snag.
My first clue that something was wrong was when I got to Leavenworth - both the prison and then the fort. I can't find any online photos that show what I saw, and I'm planning to go back to the area later this month so I'll hold off. But I will say that prison building is enormous and its appearance is much more striking than the online photos show.
Anyway, I started wondering exactly where in Kansas Leavenworth is, because I didn't remember I'd be passing through it today and didn't understand why I'd thought it was okay just whizzing through town without at least planning a stop. But when I saw a sign saying I was nearing Kansas City, with nary a word about how far I was from Topeka, I knew something was wrong. I pulled off the first place that looked safe, and it turned to be a residential neighborhood. I didn't think the residents would much want me parking in front of their houses but I needed badly to take a look at the map and reconsult Google and figured if anyone complained, I'd ask directions as the surest way to get rid of me.
Google and I had communication problems because it disagreed with me about what city I was in and refused to find the street I was on, and then I saw a woman walking her dog and jumped out to ask for help. She pulled out her phone, asked for directions, and then tried to tell me what she saw on the screen (because I hadn't brought out my reading glasses and anyway didn't want to get right next to her, neither of us having masks). But her directions were partly of the local variety - rattling off street names she knew in her sleep - and partly of the Google is once again sending me in the wrong direction variety. But she told me the name of the town, Basehor (being so close to Ft. Leavenworth made me think the name was a pun), which helped.
I went back to the RV and that's when I noticed I had a very flat rear tire. Imagine the sinking feeling in my stomach. It was already mid-afternoon, I still had more than an hour to drive to Topeka, even once I'd found the right road which I hadn't been able to do so far, and I didn't dare go far on that tire, even though I've got 2 tires on each end of my rear axle.
So back with my hotspot and laptop, I finally managed to find where we were and then looked up tire places nearby, then called what seemed like the most convenient one to be sure they could replace my flat, and then figure out how to get from residential Kansas to the tire shop, without losing my new-found way to Topeka.
I hadn't wanted to go as far as Topeka tonight anyway, but all the state campgrounds on the way required a 3-night stay, this being considered a holiday weekend (remember Columbus?), and I didn't want to do that right now. Topeka was the closest KOA, not counting those in Missouri, so that's where I'd made (and paid for) a reservation.
Being committed to that campground, and feeling a little desperate about the tire situation, and not completely sure of my directions, off I went. And I found it - Todd's Tire, in the town of Tonganoxie, KS. Ever heard of that one? It's apparently a vibrant community and I saw several bumper stickers saying, "No Tyson In Tongie," which I'd thought was a misprint or an obscenity until I discovered Tonganoxie and figured it out.
The folks at Todd's Tire were very pleasant, professional and accommodating, and somehow squeezed me in between all their other customers. They clearly did a roaring business, making me wonder what the roads were like in that area. They sold me 2 new tires, moved the all-weather tires I'd bought in Colorado to the right rear axle, and put the new ones on the front. They claimed it would be a mistake to put the all-weather tires on either side (a) because they were much newer and therefore higher off the ground, so the older tires wouldn't get much traction and (b) the right rear is where the power goes in a rear-wheel drive vehicle like mine so I'd get better traction with them there and (c) that's what they do for guys with duelies. The reason my old tire went flat is that the valve stem got messed up so thoroughly the tire was junk and couldn't be repaired, which they'd hoped to do. It cost a lot of money I hadn't expected to be paying, but I was very grateful I'd gotten lost and parked in the suburbs, where they have weird curbs that allowed me to notice the flat. These new tires that look low on air even when they're fine make a real flat tire hard to spot, obviously.
Off I went due west to Topeka. The good thing about being close to a metropolis like Kansas City (KS and MO) was being able to find an NPR station, the first I've found this month. I heard something about an attempted kidnapping of Michigan's Gov. Whitmer, which is a stunning piece of news.
And I heard them report that Missouri is having a strong resurgence of coronavirus cases, with the Bootheel area reporting a 40% positivity rate on those being tested. The MO governor made a statement that I'm translating as "ignore the man behind the curtain," saying we shouldn't be focused on those who are sick but instead on the number of those who have recovered.
Well, I now had some unexpected time to think, and my main thought was maybe I shouldn't plan to spend November in Missouri. The positivity rate is jarring, but I'm really not interested in going to a state where the government wants to pretend there's no problem at all. I believe Dr. Fauci, and he says there's a problem.
Because I refused to go on a toll road, the most direct route took me right through the center of Topeka. Not the right time of day to be driving from north to south in a state capital city, but I could see it was the most sensible. I saw the capitol building but am planning to come back tomorrow so will talk about it then.
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