Kansas 2005

Interlude: Western Kansas

Before moving onto Part 3 of our journey, we had a one-day interlude.

When my parents were first married, they were quite spontaneous. Their honeymoon consisted in taking a few extra days to travel back from Garden City, KS (where the wedding happened) and Lawrence, KS (where they lived and went to school). During this pilgrimage, they visited every pathetic roadside attraction between the two cities. They visited the world's largest prairie dog, the world's largest ball of twine, an indian burial pit, and many others. Apparently it was fun. Anyway, to relive the glory days, we decided to drive aimlessly across Kansas and see all the tourist traps before proceeding to Part 3, which took place in Manhattan, KS (the Little Apple).

Greensburg, KS: The Big Well

The Big Well is the world's largest hand-dug well. Or it was when it was constructed. It's not anymore. It's just a really big well. It's 107 feet deep and you can walk all the way to the bottom of it on steps that look like they might collapse at any moment, supported here and there by a steel strap bolted to the stone wall. When we got down to the bottom, there were two workmen installing a floodlight underneath the deck where we stood, so visitors could see the water at the bottom. The well is no longer used, but it still has water in the bottom. While we were still at the bottom, the tornado sirens sounded. Fortunately the workmen were there to tell us it was just to tell them to knock off for lunch. Apparently sirens sound every day at noon in Greensburg. As he was leaving, one of the workmen handed me a Sharpie® and told me to leave my name.

And so I did.

There is a crazy person named M.T. Ligett living in Mullinville, KS. He makes metal things, mainly from scrap metal and old roadsigns. His "art" is political in nature. He probably owns a shotgun (or twelve) and has an army of rottweilers. I didn't see them (or him) but he's crazy. Most of the sculptures were grotesque caricatures of various political figures with really mean, acidic, nasty things written underneath. Almost all of them (James Carville, Joe Biden, Janet Reno, Madeline Albright, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and others) were Democrats. However, there was one of George W. Bush. Underneath it, a plate said simply, "Bush's War For Oil; Bring Back Slick Willie." Slick Willie, of course, refers to Mr. Clinton himself. (I had trouble figuring this one out, actually...I thought "slick" was in reference to oil.) Anyway, some of the sculptures were non-political, and one such is featured at the right with my parents. The Jayhawk is a creative revision of the native American thunderbird, and is the mascot of the University of Kansas (ludicrously abbreviated KU and not U of K or UK, even though its name is very much not Kansas University).

There is an ominous sight on US-70 just east of Montezuma, KS. It is an army of 207-foot towers each with three 77-foot blades turning at 28.5 rpm (155 mph at the farthest end of the blade). These silent white structures make electricity, and quite a lot of it. Each produces 660 kW, and there are 170 of them, for a total output of 110 MW. Visiting these things goes something like this:

So that was a lot of fun. Montezuma held fewer interesting things than its outskirts. There was a really out-of-place multimillion-dollar museum built around the travels of a couple of philanthropic Montezuma bankers, but it was largely uninteresting. There was, however, some very nice Art from western Kansas. Apparently the museum had announced to the public that their doors were open, and for two days, people from all over western Kansas brought their art to be displayed for three weeks on the walls of what is doubtless western Kansas's largest museum. That exhibit was cool. I actually don't know why I didn't photograph some of the art. But I didn't. Maybe because in most of the big art museums they say "don't photograph the art!"

The next stop along the fun ride was Minneapolis, Kansas, where we found Rock City, a collection of boulders just sittin' there on the ground (see below). They are called concretions, and they formed in a complex process known as concretionization.

Seriously. That's what it's called.

The point is that rocks are fun. I had some fun climbing all over them. I even managed to climb my way onto one of the rocks that didn't seem to have a way up. Then I leapt perilously across a gap from one rock to another. It was an adrenaline rush.

There was one rock with a tunnel in it. Against my better judgment, I got down on my belly and crawled into it. It was narrow and felt damp, but I persevered, emerging moments later from the other end. I took a picture of it, but the picture doesn't quite capture the tunnel-ness of this tunnel. It just looks (to me) like a hole in the rock.