back to Iowa - Day 20 - Wellington, KS, to Pacific Junction, IA

I-29/Hwy 34 Campground, Pacific Junction

Sunday, 20 November 2022

Google said today's drive would take 5½ hours, but we still didn't leave until nearly 8:00.  I guess there's just so much I can take.

But if anybody'd dropped by our campsite before we left and asked if I'd give them one of the kittens, I might well have agreed to dump Bucky on them.  He was seriously persistent about eating out of everybody else's bowl no matter how many times I pulled him away or yelled at him.  He drove me crazy.  

Then he started biting and clawing Dexter who finally yipped and snapped at him and then moved away and wouldn't come back to his place in front of the heater, which seemed really unfair that Dext should be paying the price for Bucky's bad behavior.

Then when it was time to go I couldn't find him.  I called (no answer), checked the bathroom thoroughly before closing the door, checked the upstairs and under the driver's seat (I've closed off the opening under the passenger's seat with rolled up towels because of a terrible draft) - he was nowhere.  Then I finally concluded he was still in the RV, so I wouldn't be leaving him behind if I just got us rolling, and I'd figured out where he was at the first stop.  Except he suddenly appeared on Dexter's bed between the 2 seats with Jimmy once we got underway.  I have no idea where he'd been.

The last few days we were on the road, I noticed Dext was refusing to use that between-the-seat bed when the kitties were on it - he'd try to fall asleep on the passenger seat instead - and I've decided he's gotten spooked.  After watching that performance earlier with Bucky biting and clawing him (probably just trying to play with him, but Dexter's not a cat, let alone a kitten), I think he's afraid of getting too close to them.  Besides, once a week or two ago, he stepped down onto the bed and accidentally stepped on one of the kitties who yowled.  So I think the poor thing is just afraid of doing the wrong thing - and he was here first.

today's route
(the eastern blue line)

I decided to take the toll road part way north, but then to break off so we could go through a town to a nice park I found online and then go on regular highways from there.

I passed Fort Riley, both a fort and a town, and both proclaim themselves "Home of the Big Red One."  This is the Army's 1st Infantry Division, formed in 1917 to support Gen. Pershing in France in WWI.  And apparently they've been going strong ever since.

I saw a whole bunch of Apache helicopters (I guess) - the kind with a rotor in front and another in the rear - sitting on the ground.

We stopped at a rest area, and when we got back on the road, it narrowed to just the shoulder because a crew was cleaning up a huge mess from a semi's trailer being completely destroyed.  It looked like there'd been a big fire, though I wouldn't have thought a fire would leave so much debris scattered over such a wide area.

I saw a sculpture high on a hill and did some detective work to figure out what it was.  It's called Guard of the Plains (not to be confused with Keeper of the Plains, which is a statue in Wichita that kept popping up in my search) and it's out in the middle of nothing but Kansas landscape.  I found this photo on the internet.

Guard of the Plains

This was the only photo I could find that wasn't copyrighted.  But maybe you get the idea.  Odd sort of sculpture, isn't it?

A sign told me the next 8 miles of road were the 1st section of interstate built in the United States.  I think I remember being here 2 years ago.

I was long off the toll road by then and on I-70.  There was a very strong crosswind there and I had a really hard time keeping on the road at times.  And I was only going 65 mph in a 75 mph zone.  But I noticed some big rigs were also having trouble and were also going slower than usual, which means it was a real problem.

At Mayetta I saw a sign for Prairie Band Potawatomie Nation, and then signs telling me I passed through the Potawatomie Indian Reservation.

A highway sign told me "1 Kansas farmer feeds more than 155 people + YOU!"

And I saw another sign that said, "Whatever you do, don't give up - be brave - reach out."  I'm guessing that's for suicide prevention.

I came to the Kickapoo Indian Reservation and then I was leaving Kansas - "Come Again" they said.

I remember that Nebraska didn't welcome me.  They just said "The Good Life."  And they also said they're the "Home of Arbor Day."  It began in the early 1870s as a proposal from an influential Nebraskan.  An influence to his thinking was the 1870 effort to plant trees in treeless Nebraska - $50 would be the 1st prize for the largest grove planted in this competition.  And from that, this gentleman convinced others to set aside one day as Arbor Day, the day when everybody would plant a tree.  So yeah, I guess the state gets to claim the name.

I didn't stay long in Nebraska but cut across the Missouri River to Iowa in the far southwestern part of the state.  "The People of Iowa Welcome You" they told me again.

I stopped for gas at a Cenex station where they charged me $3.16/gallon for unleaded with ethanol.

And we got into the campground at 3:20.  So once again a long day, but for some reason not as long as on our way south.  I dumped my tanks again, just in case I had trouble finding a dump station farther along the road, and filled up my water tank for the same reason.

This was an odd campground.  The name for one thing.  The only name I ever found for it was I-29/Hwy 34 Campground, and the owner calls it "the campground."  Nobody in management was on the site as far as I could tell, but the space she'd told me would be available was - even though it wasn't reserved.  She said it'd be first-come-first-served, and a sign said this site was for one-night guests only.  And she was right that availability wasn't a problem.  But I'm always a little nervous on those no-reservation situations.