Post Rock

We stumbled across something interesting while driving the stick-straight roads of central Kansas.  Fence posts made of stone.

Turns out these unique fence posts have become a cultural icon of central Kansas.  With the Homestead Act of 1862, the lands of the west were opened for settlement.  Pioneers were drawn by the lure of relatively free land.  Since the prairies are basically treeless, they had to find some way to enclose their new land.

Some smart person decided that the limestone of the area fit the bill for fence posts.  It is relatively close to the surface and is pretty uniform in thickness.  But the best quality is the fact that it is relatively soft when first quarried but then hardens with exposure to air.

A very cool discovery on the backroads of Kansas!

A Tale of Two Saturdays - The Second Saturday

After leaving Fort Larned, we headed north to reach I-70 in order to get a few more miles under our belt before stopping for the day.  After a quick bite of dinner in Hayes, Kansas, we headed west - those miles clicking away.  And then it happened.

Vol Fan was traveling in the right-hand lane with a semi beside him in the left-hand lane when a car came down the on ramp.  The driver was busy talking to (and looking at his passenger) and he never glanced up to see the oncoming traffic.  Vol Fan attempted to speed up to avoid collision but it didn't work.  The car missed hitting the vehicle that Vol Fan was driving but not the trailer he was pulling.

Thankfully, Vol Fan was able to maintain control of his vehicle and didn't end up under the semi that was beside him!  We lost a fender, mangled a tire, and had a pretty good dent but we were safe and that was the main thing.

As we were on the side of the interstate speaking to the policeman that had just arrived, we were watching a storm that had been forming to our southwest.  It was beautiful and scary at the same time.  As it approached, it produced a beautiful rainbow.

Just as we were admiring the rainbow, the officer called "Hail!  Take cover!!" and we all scrambled to reach the relative safety of our vehicles.  At first, it was pea-sized then golfball size started mixing in.  And then some tennis ball size mixed in!  It was very scary!  Thankfully, we didn't have any glass breakage in the vehicles but we do have some dents!

Crazy how big these things are!  And this was after 10 minutes of rain and a good 10-15 minutes of tire changing so they had melted quite a bit.

After this, we decided that our luck had run out for the day and that we were stopping at the next exit that had a hotel.  Wow, what a day!

A Tale of Two Saturdays - The First Saturday

Last Saturday began normal enough.  We were on our second leg of the drive to Denver for Vol Fan's current project location.  And of course, Woody made us stop along the way to visit a couple of sites in the National Park system.

Our first stop was Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Strong City, Kansas.  It contains just what its name suggests - tall grass and prairie.  It has its own subtle beauty - an endless sea of rolling hills covered by prairie grasses.  It was a peaceful spot.  We would like to return in the fall when the grasses reach their full height!

Our next stop was Fort Larned National Historic Site just outside of Larned, Kansas.  It is an original fort that has been restored to how it looked originally when it was constructed in the mid-1850s.  It was built to house Army troops that were stationed to protect freight along the Santa Fe trail.

As we toured the fort, a storm passed to the southeast and provided some dramatic skies.

All in all, a pretty great Saturday!