Wednesday, September 12, 2007

This must be Kansas... (KS)



Western Kansas is one of those areas where you can photograph a sunset and later a sunrise and nobody will know the difference. Truly the plains, uninterrupted by mountains, hills, buildings, or often even trees. And I know this isn’t Oklahoma, but the corn is definitely not as tall as an elephant’s eye.

Eastern Kansas seems nicer, more trees and more rolling hills, and a little more health to the small communities. We visited Hays and Fort Hays, an Indian fighter fort from the 1860s-1870s. Large, in addition to defending the settlers and the railway it had a logistics role supplying other plains forts. It was large enough to get away with no surrounding stockade. Indians were reluctant to attack such large numbers of soldiers, and in turn the soldiers could easily see the Indians coming across the flat lands. Wild Bill Cody and Buffalo Bill Hickok interacted with the fort over the years, and Custer once served here.

Tonight and tomorrow night we’re staying at the Covered Wagon RV Resort in Abilene, $21/night with hookups and WiFi. Older campground but quite pleasant, with large shade trees and spacious gravel and grass sites. The same small, quiet, sluggish flies we’ve been dealing with since eastern Colorado—easily swatted, but annoying.

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