High Plains

Date of Trip:October 16,2010

I recall my first trip west last year and being fasinated by the wind farms, miles and miles of Tall, lean white windmills dotting farm lands between Salina and Russell on I-70. The overwhelming image I had on what would be the longest trip I have taken since the mission to explore Kansas,was not taken with a camera,but lives in the minds eye. The wind farms at night.It's really dark in that stretch of road, the towns are all miles off the highway and the dark sky has a beauty all it own. To the north they are dotted with red lights,obviously used for air travel, the funny thing was they blink on and off in what is almost a dance to no music. In the car we were listening to a biography of John Wayne, so that couldnt be it. Heading west we timed the first view of the sentenial like windmills at 10 miles. So it was a few minutes before we reached the farms itself and the cause of the blinking was revealed. The blades whirling around cut out the red light for a brief moment. It was beautiful to watch the ballet of red dots against the black night.


The weekend was also a time of Fall festivals,a corn husking contest at the Buffalo Bill statue near Oakley to the Maple Leaf festival in Baldwin.

As we have gone on this trips, a bucket list has emerged, County court houses. I love the town square feel to them,mainly because we in Topeka have the Capital Building, the court house is a gross looking 1950's look to it.Most of the courthouses are old,situationed in the town square with mom and pops stores around them. As we found in December in Yates Center,wonderful christmas lights, 3 hit county court houses, in Sharon Springs,Goodland and Oakley. Plus a beautiful court house in Cheyenne Wells,Co.

Mount Sunflower is the highest point in Kansas at 4 thousand feet. It is not a mountain at all by the high point of several hills. It lays 11 miles down this road and 2 miles up that road from US-40. Or you get there from I-70, same directions, 12 miles here and 2 miles there. Either way you pass farm land,cows grazing and occasionally passing the road.

The Summit includes a picnic area,a mailbox with a guestbook and stories about a wedding conducted there on a New Years Day in bitter cold, some iron works and a note that Colorado is at the first fence in the distance, about a half mile away.

Please to note I made it all four states in this calendar year and Jan 29,2011 is the 150th Birthday of Kansas Statehood.