HEADING EAST, THEN SOUTH

Kansas is a hard state to cross, she is wide!

Since Nebraska, the tingling in my right leg has worsened to a constant sharp pain. It's made driving a painful ordeal.  I have a theory that it's related to my progressive leg swelling problem.  In my regular life, I'm on my feet running around all day.  Stick me in a car for two weeks and cool scientific experiment unfolds.  In Minnesota, my toes' swelling became a 24 hr phenomenon.  Then my Vienna sausage toes lead to swollen ankles.  By Kansas, my knees had joined the mutiny.  Hopefully, these unpleasant side effects to travel will be reversible!  Cankles and line backer knees are a small price to pay for the chance to savor so much of this wonderful country.

For example,  driving through Kansas, I crossed a town with appealing modern buildings.  Hmmm, why is the whole town now sporting a chic green architecture?




Municipal bldg, check out the dead tree devoid of its bark., 200 mph winds can do that


The buildings are all new because a tornado smoked 95% of the town back in '07.  Kudos to city planners for going green during the restoration!

They even had, be still my beating heart, a round building.





The Big Well

 As the name implies, it's the largest hand dug well in the world.  Built in 1887, the workers were paid 50 cents a day for labor.  Double what the laborers in Colorado received 30 years later for their toil on the Sterling Dam! 




Modern stairs allow you to walk down part of the way. 

 100 feet deep by 30 feet wide.  I had flashbacks to my childhood, it smelled exactly like my Uncle Bob's old cellar!  The rectangular form in the bottom of the well is a platform to catch most of what people drop into the well. Still, many things end up in the water. I asked the curator how many car keys fall into the well.  Surprisingly, not many, but divers did pull a set of dentures from the bottom of the well a few years ago.

At long last, I made it to the Mitchell Family Farm in Southeastern Kansas...only a day late.  Since my last visit 3 years ago, many critters had grown...



Porcine family has put on a few hundred pounds


...the hay derrick is finished and operational:



Grown children (4) at play!

  
   
Jena has been hard at work constructing an obstacle course that would make a Navy Seal weep for mercy!



Here she tries to coax me to leap onto the next tire...not.



Jena makes it look deceivingly easy!



I needed support staff!





More support staff and worried onlookers


I demand a rematch in October.  Either I will accept my age and limitations or, most likely, die trying to make it to the top of the snake ladder!

Homegrown vegetables, eggs from Deanna's flock and milk from her Jerseys made supper extra scrumptious. 

Pressed for time, I crammed my Clydesdale's old harness in the mini-truck (Hyundai toy) and attempted to get closer to my next stop in Texas.  Terrible to be behind schedule while on holiday!

Bye for now to my crazy Kansas family,  but I'll be back in a few months!