Our Travel Blog

As forecast, it started to rain overnight and continued throughout the morning with occasional thunder and lightning thrown in for good measure.

After breakfast we headed out towards Baldwin City about 40 miles north west for train trip. Unfortunately it won’t be a steam train, they are getting harder and harder to find.

Just after we started out the  rain began to ease, but according to radar that was just the eye of the storm, there was more precipitation to come. As I have mentioned before many of the fields around here have oil wells in them, the local ones seem to be miniature versions of ones we have seen previously, standing only about 6 ft high.

As you can see there are crops planted all around the well. In some fields of mature corn you can just see the arm moving above the crops.

We reached the station about 30 minutes before the scheduled departure, there weren’t too many people around. The train pulled into the station, and we could see why, one engine, one carriage, one open air carriage and a caboose!

In total there were 16 passengers, probably not a money making trip, especially as there was a free ice-cream for each passenger to celebrate July 4th!

The coach was built in 1923

Although it was still raining out, it didn’t affect the trip too much, as this one was definitely a trip for riding on a train rather than looking at the scenery. A lot of the trip was through wooded areas, the rest was open fields.

Corn as far as the eye can see!

The window was a little damp, but as you can just make out we passed through Ottawa!

At the far end of the trip the engine disconnected, and went to the other end of the train to drag us back.

Overall, not the best trip we’ve been on, but there was little else to do on a day like today. Back at the station, the heavens opened up to great us as we stepped off the train.

After lunch we headed back to Paola to do our last weekly shop, then it was back to the trailer for the rest of the afternoon.

Again, cool overnight and blue skies and sunshine this morning. As you can see below there is one small Canadian flag at the campsite! We were expecting a lot of hoop-la in the way of American flags and bunting in celebration of July 4th, but there is noting evident here or in the surrounding area.

This morning we headed off for some exercise in the form of a walk to the local Rutlader cemetery. Why the cemetery, obviously because there is a cache there. We have got very little exercise recently, and really need to get back into the routine. Now the temperatures are cooler (sub 32C /90F) the thought of walking is a little more appealing.

Rutlader is the “town” we are staying in, it has a rather weird history:

As you enter the “town” and look in front of the Outpost Store you will see the town sign “Rutlader: Population 11” In 1990, Jimmie Rutlader and his late brother Joseph gave 125 acres to the State of Kansas with a promise from state officials they would put Rutlader on the map.

The donated land is now the Rutlader Wildlife Area. Although the “town” still bears a Louisburg, KS mailing address. This didn’t stop Jimmy Rutlader from installing his own sign and make his lifelong dream come true, he built his own town complete with a public cemetery.

One and a half miles later we had the cache, and some exercise. Back at the trailer I started listing which electronics /computer stuff stays in the trailer, and which goes home. I have done this a few times and have either lost the list, or not trusted it and brought a whole lot of stuff down I don’t need. Hopefully this will be the definitive list!

After lunch we headed out to an old “Cider Mill” which has been producing cider for 120 years (Brits… don’t get excited, Cider this side of the pond is missing one vital ingredient… alcohol). There were both the original press, and the more modern electrically powered hammer press. Leaving the Cider Mill, we headed back to Louisburg as we hadn’t actually been to the core area. We hadn’t missed too much, there was a large food store, and we finally found another hardware store, but it didn’t have the fittings I had been looking for earlier. There was also the mandatory auto-parts store – in fact there were two in the town!

Back at the trailer we just lounged around, doing very little! The temperatures moderated enough that by late afternoon we could switch off the A/C and open up all the windows and door. Unfortunately the cool comes before a very wet day forecast for tomorrow when we have tickets booked on a train ride up near Kansas City. Hopefully we are not in open air carriages!

Some more rain overnight, but a sunny start to the day. After breakfast we headed south to Fort Scott, Kansas. This is the location of an old fort that was established back in the 1840’s along the “permanent Indian line”, basically Indians to the West and “Americans” to the East. As the Americans pushed further west, the fort was no longer needed and most of the military based there were sent off to fight the Mexicans who were a little upset that Texas had just been taken from them.

The fort is now designated a National Historical Site and has been renovated. Below are some general views.

The Laundry Room

Laundry Room and Officers Houses

Quilt

Kitchen (playing with camera)

Just across the street from the fort is downtown Fort Scott. There are some interesting buildings, but unfortunately most of them are now empty.

Our next stop was Big Brutus, on the way there we drove through some countryside that was very reminiscent of England, rolling hills and green fields. Compared with where we have been recently, the countryside around here is very lush and green.

Back to Big Brutus, the worlds largest electric shovel, used at a coal mine. It was constructed in 1962, and transported to Kansas in kit form by rail. It required 150 rail cars to transport it. Big Brutus stands 160ft tall weighing in at 11 million pounds or 4.99 million kgs. The boom is 150 ft long and the bucket can hold 90 cu yds of coal, that’s enough to fill 3 rail cars. Big Brutus can crawl along at 0.22 mph.

 It only was used until 1974 when it no longer became economical to mine coal at the site. At that time it was considered too big to move and so was left in place.

Next stop is a little unique, its a point where three State boundaries (Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma meet). In addition we get to visit Oklahoma for the first time.

It took about 3 seconds to walk around the monument and walk through 3 States!

Above is an Oklahoma mountain; actually it is a large pile of sand at the side of the roads and rainfall has shaped it. It looked pretty convincing in the photo though! After a little geo-caching in Oklahoma we crossed into Missouri and drove through the city of Joplin.

Mural in Joplin

A few more caches in Missouri and we headed back towards the trailer. As we’d been out most of the day, we decided we’d head over to Paola and the BBQ shack we saw yesterday for dinner, A good choice.

Ahhhhh.. Cooler temperatures, but an increase in humidity. I guess you can’t win them all.

We woke up to a sunny, but cooler day. It was tempting to switch off the A/C, but the outside humidity dictated otherwise. After breakfast we headed off to the local hardware store to get the fittings I needed for the plumbing job. Problem was, there was no hardware store, there was a closed down hardware store, but that wasn’t too much use! We came back to the trailer and searched the web for another store (who would have thought that getting plumbing fittings could be so difficult!)

The nearest store was in Paola, about 12 miles away, so off we headed. This area seems far more prosperous than recent places we have been to, many large houses on 1 acre + lots, with well kept grounds.

Finally …… success, I got the fittings I needed, in addition we discovered that Paola was an interesting old town town with a central square dating back to the mid 1800’s. It also has a well known BBQ shack… we’ll be going back.

After lunch I installed the new faucets while Lyn went to do the laundry, evidently this is the cheapest place we have discovered on this trip at $2.25 to wash and dry the load.

We took a wander around the campsite, which seems to have a mixture of semi-permanent residents and weekly visitors with very few one nighters.

The grounds are quite well laid out, despite the Kansas heat, with flower gardens and a large fishing pond / lake.

Late afternoon was spent sitting under the awning as a thunderstorm tracked by us! Tomorrow we’re off for a tour around the tri-State area of Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri.

We seem to have got this packing up down to a fine art now, within 45 minutes of falling out of bed we were on the road.

Today’s destination was Louisburg Kansas, on the Kansas – Missouri border.

The day started off nice and cool at around 21C. The sky ahead looked quite black and threatening, but we never caught up with the bad weather although the roads were wet in places.

The trip today was mostly downhill, literally. For the first time in a couple of months we descended below 1000 ft. There were a number of wind farms along the I-70, given the way the wind was always blowing at the campground, they must produce a fair amount of electricity.

The scenery changed from large wheat and corn fields to gently rolling, wooded hills. About 350 kms of the trip was Interstate and the remaining 150 kms on smaller, but straight roads.

We arrived at the campground around 2 PM, and the truck surpassed itself, not a single problem the whole day!!

Unlike the previous campground, this one was pretty full when we arrived, I think it is going to be more tourist traffic than itinerant.

We also seem to be a bit closer to civilisation, perhaps I’ll get the new kitchen taps in tomorrow!

Again a coolish night, no problem sleeping.

After breakfast I headed out to the local hardware store to pick up the fittings I needed to install the new faucets. Well that was an exercise in futility, the store had nothing that could even be cobbled together to get the required end result.

Back at the trailer Lyn was busy quilting, so I played computer programmer for a while.

The weather forecasters here aren’t too bad at forecasting the weather, but leave a lot to be desired when it comes to forecasting the temperature. Again we reached up into the low 90’s. I think the heat has been one of the reasons we have been happy to hang around here and do very little, another reason is that there is very little to do.

Some kids had the audacity to take over “our” swimming pool (we’re usually the only people in the campground in the early afternoon) playing a noisy game of Marco Polo. We gave the pool a miss!

I started packing up a lot of the outside stuff in preparation for an early morning departure tomorrow. The next campground will be the last on this trip except for 2 days in Alabama which will be the new permanent home for the trailer. Hopefully the next week will see a little more activity in the touring department.

A cool night last night, down to 18C at one stage. We managed to leave the A/C off all night and most of the morning.

In keeping with the idea that this stop is a “vacation within a vacation”, nothing was planned for today, and likely not for tomorrow either!

Lyn continued working on her quilt, and I started on installing the new faucets. I got the old ones out without too much bother, installed the new ones and went to connect them up….. whoops, different fittings, they won’t connect. No problem, off to the local hardware store, they’re bound to have what I need. They almost certainly had the right fittings, but being deep in the heart of darkest rural Kansas the shop was well and truly closed, this being a Sunday. Back to the trailer, take out the new faucets, put in the old ones, pretend nothing happened and wait until tomorrow!

After lunch we headed out for a walk, we decided to see if we could find the cache that eluded us the other day. After 30 seconds of searching we found it. We managed to get a 1.5 mile walk in, which is the first lengthy walk for a couple of weeks due to the heat.

Back at the campground we went over to the pool before the itinerant hoards arrived and had the place to ourselves.

There was one other group that stayed for the day, they were in a rather sophisticated tent. Not the best picture as it was in the shade.

About 2 AM we awoke, or were awoken, by the sound of rain and thunder. There was also a near non stop display of lightning from above the clouds. After watching the spectacle for a while, it was back to sleep until our usual wake up time.

After breakfast we hung around the trailer, although initially it wasn’t as hot as it had been, the humidity had risen to about 60%. Recently humidity levels had been below the 30% mark.

Lyn did some quilting, and I set about devising a way to create some storage space in the trailer from a wasted area we had found that existed behind a panel near the entrance way.

After lunch we headed out to Hays, about 30 miles away to do our weekly shopping. We also wanted to get a new faucet set for the kitchen as the current set is beginning to corrode and is getting difficult to move. A job for tomorrow.

The humidity was increasing, as was the temperature which peaked at 34C, we then got a few showers and the thunder started rumbling again. After a quick visit to Home Depot for the faucets, there was a more leisurely stop at Hobby Lobby then we got the grocery shopping out of the way. This was the last major grocery shopping of the trip.

Back at the trailer we sat outside surrounded by dark grey clouds, the rumble of thunder and a severe thunderstorm warning. The storm was still a fair way off as far as visible lightning was concerned, but the the rumble of thunder was nearly constant. As the storm got closer, it started to rain, a good hint to head inside. We were then treated to more intense lightning and much louder claps of thunder. Looking at the radar, these storms are likely to continue well into the night.

The good news is the temperature has dropped to 20C and we can switch off the A/C. Forecast temperatures for the next few days are more reasonable at around 28C.

A coolish night, the A/C didn’t need to run all night long!

Today was a vacation day, of sorts! This morning was reasonably cool, so we sat outside for a while in the breeze. Then I got bored! I needed to do a little first aid on the truck, it suffered an injury going through the car wash a few days ago. As the car wash machine started up and approached the truck I decided it would be a good idea to read the warning signs, one of which was “we accept no responsibility for damage to bug shields”. Umm, wonder if that applies to me?? It was too late do anything about the situation, so I just sat there and watched as the revolving brushes attacked my bug shield, pulling one side off the hood. Out of the car wash I managed some temporary repairs, then yesterday in Great Bend I got some replacement fasteners. Unfortunately I wanted fasteners that fitted a 9 mm hole, 9 mm is a foreign language down here, so I got a pack of what looked like 9 mm. I was close they were 3/8″, just under 1 mm too large, nothing a sharp knife couldn’t fix!

The bug shield is now firmly back in place.

Next project was to fix the igniter on the BBQ, I have four deceased igniters here from previous repairs (I have problems throwing some things away) but no new ones. Much to my amazement all 4 dead ones had come back to life, I guess they just needed a rest!

BBQ now ignites at the push of a button.

After lunch we headed out on a geocaching session, we found 6 out of 7. Not bad, after a bit of research I think I can find the 7th as well.

Yet again the temperatures were in the high 90’s so we were pretty warm after we got back to the trailer, so it was off to the pool to cool down.

I will NOT mention BREXIT and our pensions

It must have cooled down quite a bit last night as the A/C was not running when we woke up. After breakfast we decided to head out for a day trip to Great Bend, about 100 miles away. There was a quilt walk that Lyn had read about that described the life of early settlers and their quilting patterns. There was also a pioneer type village that sounded interesting. To top it all off we could get there and back on a scenic drive.

As we headed south the sky ahead of us got darker and darker, but that wasn’t a worry as the scenery was superb as we passed through some Kansas Mountains.

A few miles further south we made a 90 degree left turn and the weather ahead looked much better, although about 20 minutes later the radio programme was interrupted with an Emergency Broadcast Message warning of severe thunderstorms and hail to the south of us. As we were heading east we weren’t too concerned, beside we had the sights of the scenic byway to look at.

The area was generally crop farming, with a few cattle herds added in. In addition there were a number of small oil wells in many of the fields, I guess this provided supplementary income to the farmers?

Below are a couple of general views that we took along the way.

The bad weather stayed to the south of us…….. until we got about 10 miles from our destination, then the rain started. The good news was that the temperatures had stayed cool, 21C by the time we hit Great Bend. As the rain was a little too heavy for walking, especially as we had left jackets and hats in the trailer (remember it was sunny and warm when we left) we went for a coffee. The rain began to ease off so we headed off to see the quilt walk. Unfortunately the quilt walk was on the same par as Kansas Mountains and Kansas Scenic Routes, just a tad underwhelming. There were four “quilts” inset into paving stones at four corners of a park surrounding the court house, no explanations, no history….. nothing to even acknowledge them.

The Courthouse:Next stop, the “pioneer” village. We didn’t even stop there, as we drove by we could see it was a group of less than a dozen buildings lined up along the edge of the street, many of them appeared to be closed up.

We found a place for a late lunch, then decided to head back. About 10 miles out of town the rain stopped, the sky’s cleared and the temperature climbed slowly from 21C to 31C. I guess Great Bend wasn’t to keen on us visiting!

NOTE:

No tongues or cheeks were hurt in the writing of this blog.