wind and one last journey of 2010

The overwhelming summary I have of travel in 2010 is weather, the first to Fort Scott was delayed by snow and iffy when did make it. The fog was so thick on K10 in Olathe that a fire truck came out of nowhere,it cleared by the time we reached Fort Scott,but we missed the view of the power plant on the Military road the lines the east edge of Kansas.

In was cold and windy in Oklahoma City in February. I climbed a ridge in Ottawa in a light rain to see the Marais des Cygnes River in early May. It was over 100 degrees in July when I stood in Cawker City to take a picture of phone booth on a street corner.Coming back from Winterset,Iowa I watched a lightening storm over North Kansas City.As I stood looking at a sign explaining the fence some half mile in the distance was Colorado in October it was blustery and cold. A cold,grey day in November made thoughts of skipping the Veterans day parade in Emporia a good idea. This weekend the trip to Concordia on 24,down 81 to salina and then I-70 was defined by wind so bad it stopped you from walking at I walked north on the flat tree less plains toward a guard tower of a German POW Camp. It was a quite a year and very interesting trips.

We saw 3 court houses Saturday, In Clay Center,Concordia,and Salina. The Clay Center one was nice, in a town square with 2 teenage girls bravely manning a Salvation Army kettle,a painted sign for Coke was on a wall and our stay was brief. On the way we passed Riley County High School, at the intersection of 77 and 24,with its enrollment in 2008 of 221 students,the school can boast of 2 current players in the NFL,quite a feat. Jon McGraw of the Kansas City Chiefs and Jordy Nelson of the Green Bay Packers.

Concordia is the county seat of Cloud County. Home to the National Orphan Train Museum which is a visit for a another day. The Historical society annex features one of the more unique murals in Kansas, the side of the building has brick cravings of the counties history.I highly recommend the Museum nearby in the Carnegie Library building, It talks about the POW Camp,has an unusal collection of pencils with business printed on them,tons of milk bottles,old dressses,military uniforms and almost anything else you can imagine, truly charming

Cloud County was briefly the home of one Boston Corbett http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Corbett

Known for several things,being the man who shot Lincoln Assassin John Wilkes Booth, shooting up the Kansas House of Representatives during his brief career as a door keeper and generally being crazy. Concordia was also known for being home to some 5,000 German and Italian Prisoners of War. The Guard tower and and one of the building still stand outside of town.It was hear on the flat plains with no trees in sight that the wind stopped me from walking to the guest sign in sheet.