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.

Pony Express -Eastern Terminus and a strange place

St Josephs,Missouri

Date of Trip: December 5,2009

Trip are now weather dependent, as I watch a beautiful snow fall out of my window. I have to think this is the last one of what has been an amazing year. Last week the Trails were the story,Independence,Missouri, the shoving off point for so many going west. I managed to cover Lewis and Clark,Oregon,Santa Fe,California and the Mormon Trail.About 35 miles north is St. Joseph, home town of Walter Cronkite,Jesse James and the eastern point of the Pony Express. The Patee House serves as a Museum for the city and I shall write of it shortly. One of the exhibits in the Museum is a newspaper article from from January of 1864,It announces Lincoln is running for re election and just below it a famed actor named John Wilkes Booth was in town and convinced to give a performance of Shakespearean monologues. Probably the first and not last time the two names will be linked.

We came from the Pony Express Museum. It's a nice,very interactive place were you can sit on saddles and pump water from a well into a horses trofe. Lots of maps of the Trail,artifacts and a D.A.R. Museum outside marking the stable. It is worth noting 2010 is 150th anniversary of the Express brief run.

Next was the Patee House which I thought was going to be the Pony Express office, which it was , but was so much more.

-Lincoln stayed there in 1859

-Mark Twain stayed there

-William Seward gave a speech from the balcony

-Military trials after the civil war occurred there

-An episode of "Ripley's Believe it or not not" was filmed there.Jack Palance was there and someone kept his cigar butts

-Walter Cronkite was there, as his father the dentist has artifacts in the museum.

-Next door you can find the house Jesse James was shot, which had been moved from it's original location, the sign out front says "See the Bullet hole" and we did.

Downtown is wonderful statue of a Pony Express Rider. I'll warn you if want to eat anything other Taco Bell or Hardees, you might be forced to eat at the casino.We did anyway. We have missed something else along the way. I'm going to fill the next entry with pictures from Patee house. The last picture taken at the casino is a beautiful sun set on the Missouri River. The leaves on the trees are going and I couldn't help but wonder how soon snow would cover the ground, Ice fill the river and wonderful is this was the last day of 2009 that the river would flow .

This is probably the last trip of the year, but don't worry. I sat down with a sheet of paper and came up with 19 trips,mostly in the state of Kansas that can all be done in a day. Last year was Bleeding Kansas for the most part, this year Trails ,who knows what will catch my eye in 2010. I went to Fort Leavenworth,far Western Kansas, saw such oddities as the World Largest Ball of Twine,a giant shovel,a Monument of the National Park System that told the story of my family history . In this, Lincoln's 200th Birthday , Steps were he spoke have been preserved, and a hotel where he stayed stands. Last year I was enchanted by the story of the Harvey Girls, this year I saw the way of life,Conestoga Wagons, that the trains ended.

Last year I remembered talking to a gentleman who said "If take a pins and stick in a map at Emporia,Kansas and draw a circle 200 miles around it, you will find more US History than almost anywhere in the Country." The 13 Colonies may argue that point but between the Labor Unrest of the Amazon Women in Pittsburg ,the Trials,The Homesteaders,Fort Leavenworth,Bleeding Kansas,Brown v BOE,William Allen White,Harry Truman,Dwight Eisenhower and so many others. He makes a good case.

We remember Hays House where Custer and Jesse James dined. We remember the choice Chicken Annie's or next door Chicken Mary's. We remember the Casino in St Joe with the statue of Sacajawea in front of it. We ate well,saw some amazing and frankly strange things.

So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We put away the GPS and the smart phone,give K-tag a rest, read all the brouchures I picked up and plan and plot for 2010. See you on the highways.....

Lincoln and Lewis and Clark

The first couple of photos concern Lewis and Clark. The Corp of Discovery passed by in July of 1804 heading west. We will let the journals speak for themselves:

http://www.lewisandclarktrail.com/section1/kansascities/history1.htm

Then we move to Lincoln, the Brochure of "A Driving Tour of Abraham Lincoln's 1859 visit to Kansas tells us,Lincoln spent 8 days in Kansas from November 30-December 7,1859.He spoke in Leavenworth,Elwood,Troy,Doniphan and Atchison. Pictures above are of the steps he spoke from and the Carriage he used ,which is housed at the Musuem at Fort Leavenworth. Two months after his visit to bleeding Kansas he gave the Cooper Union speech is credited with launching his Presidential Campaign. The rest is history.