Stage 5 of drive to North Dakota

Grand Island KOA, Doniphan NE

Monday, 28 through Tuesday, 29 June 2021

I know I would usually have shown my driving routes on a map, but I don't have a map of Kansas with me, and my maps of Oklahoma and Texas have already been pretty thoroughly marked up from previous trips, so I decided not to bother.  Basically, I've been driving north northeast from Dallas/Mt. Pleasant.

I'm really noticing the difference in the lengths of the daylight hours as I travel north.  When I left Mt. Pleasant just after Summer Solstice, sunrise was at 6:11 AM and sunset was at 8:32 PM.  When I get to Bismarck a week and a half later, sunrise will be 5:53 AM and sunset at 9:40 PM.  Big difference.  And I gotta tell you I'm having a really hard time getting to sleep at night, given that I go to bed long before the sun even goes down, let alone when it actually gets dark.  Who knew being a morning person was so hazardous.

Before I could leave Wellington it started to rain, catching me and the dogs out for a walk.  As the day went on, the rain got much much heavier, causing me to slow way down for some of the drive.  There was also some thunder and lightning, which I hate to see when I'm driving a metal box.

When the rain let up enough for me to see the countryside, I realized that the view I was getting from the interstate was just what I'd originally expected Kansas to look like - flat with occasional areas of rolling hills, large fields of grain (already harvested) and corn, grazing lands, cows and horses and goats.  Very attractive, though boring after a while, but not the view I remember getting during my month of driving around on everything except interstates here in Kansas.

My route took me through the town of Concordia, which advertises The Orphan Train Museum.  I didn't visit it last October but did look it up to see what this train was.  There's a link to the Wikipedia page in my 8 October 2020 post, if you're interested.  What I hadn't seen when I was through there was an impressive brick mural.

The Whole Wall Mural in Concordia, KS

This mural is 15' high and 140' long and is the longest sculpted brick mural in the country.  The bricks are made from local clay, and the mural depicts the history of Cloud County, which Concordia is in.  It was made in 2008 and erected in 2009 to cover the exposed wall of a building bought by the Cloud County Historical Society.  The train shown in the mural, by the way, is the Orphan Train.  I don't know who the woman and child are in that statue in front because I didn't get out of the RV - I just happened on this as I was leaving town and stopped to take a quick photo.

I passed a sign outside of town saying I could turn right to go to Camp Concordia, a WWII POW camp.

A few feet on the Kansas side of the border with Nebraska I saw a Trump sign, which makes #2 for this trip.

The State of Nebraska bills itself as "Home of Arbor Day."

The town of Hebron, not far from the border, claims to be Nebraska's Porch Swing Capital.  Lots to look forward to when I get my month here.

York County, the 3rd county from the border, says it's "Livestock Friendly."  Because of the mental image I got of an area that lets cows and so forth roam free in the streets, I decided to look it up now and not wait for my month here.  Turns out Nebraska has a legislatively-authorized program to assist counties that promote the livestock industry.

I crossed I-80 and saw there were those red-and-white striped bars like at railroad crossings to block the highway entrance both east- and west-bound.  They weren't being used when I was there, but there was a sign saying, "Ramp closed when lights flashing."  I saw something like that in Virginia, maybe, and wherever that was I was told the road was sometimes closed due to flooding.  So my first thought was flooding, though I was a long way from the Missouri River, which is the major one in the area.  But the Platte River runs nearby and I know in the past there's been flooding in the state.  In fact, I looked it up and found that 2019 was a bad weather year with historic snowfall followed immediately by historic flooding.  At the peak, 3,300 miles of Nebraska's roads were closed due either to snowfall or to flooding.  Weird combination, isn't it?

Well, when I looked up I-80 specifically I found that just this past March the entire highway was closed from Grand Island (tonight's campground) to the Wyoming border, not because of Nebraska's weather as much as because of a blizzard in Wyoming.  That had caused all facilities in Wyoming to be filled, resulting in all facilities in western Nebraska being filled too.  So they closed the highway.  This shows me one of the disadvantages from myo growing up in central Texas - it was such a long distance to any of the borders, we never once thought about what happened in neighboring states as having much effect on our lives.  But in the rest of the US, states actually have to pay attention to their neighbors.  I think that would take some getting used to for me.

Speaking of emergencies, I can't quite remember where I saw this thing - I think it was in Oklahoma.  I must have seen one before but my memory couldn't recall it, so I looked it up.  My guess was that it was a tornado alarm, which is pretty much right.  It's actually a general emergency siren and speaker, according to the internet, but I'm guessing it's mainly used for tornadoes in this part of the country.  Once I'd seen this one, I saw more of them in other communities.  The internet says it's primarily useful in a small community - I guess because the signal can be heard within 3,000' (more or less, depending on size).  This thing can also broadcast voice communications, as well as warning noises.  So now I know.

I also now know that there are Mennonite museums in both northern Kansas and southern Nebraska.  I don't think I knew there were Mennonites here when I was in Kansas before, because my blog is only showing me posts from Illinois and Missouri and places that aren't Kansas.  Given that there are 2 museums, I'm guessing that the Mennonites settled broadly throughout this general area.

It was a long drive to this campground - Google said it'd be 4½ hours, and it actually took me about 6½ - so I was tired when we got here.  This seems to be a nice KOA - it has 2 dog parks because it's pretty big, but it also has a lot of dogs here so we had some trouble dodging them.  However, Dexter made a friend with one dog whose owner decided to take a chance on us.  His dog was 6 months old - a rescued Golden Retriever mix - and he and Dext had a great time chasing each other around the park.  

In the 2nd park, Dext found a hole with a critter in it.  It was fortunately 2 holes - 1 on the outside that was big enough for Dext to stick his snout into, and a 2nd one inside that that critter lived in.  And the critter must have been there because Dext looked like he was ready to dive in nose-first.  I worried the critter might have claws or teeth and would use them on Dext, which might then result in a vet bill at the least and serious health trouble at the most, so I dragged him away and made the dogs leave the park.  Life just isn't dull with these travel companions of mine.

I'm glad I built in 2 nights here, because I'm still not used to hard driving, and because I'm still dealing with those stupid bug bites.  I've been using Lanacane on them to help quell the pain and itching, but the can I have has an expiration date of 3/06 so it may not be totally effective.  When I tried to buy more, the store didn't have that but did have Dermoplast, which I thought was the same thing, though an ingredient comparison later showed me there are differences.  Still, it seems to help, though it never seems to dry which makes for a nuisance when I'm trying to go to bed.  What I'm looking for is relief that will get me past the pain/itching stage, because it's so incredibly seriously frustrating not to be able to scratch them.  And it doesn't help that 6 of the bites are either directly under or quite close to where my sandals hit my feet.  I have to wear shoes and socks to go for walks these days, when I usually live in flipflops.  I'll be so glad when this too has passed.

The campground backs up to a cornfield, and for most of a day it was being watered by one of those irrigation systems with the arms, like this.

And once again I had to convert this stupid thing from a .jfif file to a .jpg, even though the photo swore it was a .jpg photo when I clicked to download it.  My computer is converting it without giving me any choice and I have no idea why.  Of course, when I asked David for help, my computer didn't do it with him so he didn't have anything to figure out.  I was pretty sure it would start up again when I left, and sure enough, it has.

Anyway, the irrigation system we saw being used had the water coming out the top from that upper arm, plus there was a long-range sprayer on the end.  There was a breeze blowing when we were watching it, so we got misted and I hoped very much that it was just water they were spraying and not some kind of chemical.

I was here for 2 nights and the group of people staying here changed almost completely from one night to the next.  What I found interesting, though, is the number of Boston terriers.  Both nights that was the primary breed, I think.  When did they get so popular?

Boston terrier
(another .jfif conversion nuisance)