Road signs
are often interesting. Unfortunately, when you’re driving by at 60 mph, it’s
hard to capture them with the camera. My recent favorite in Kansas was outside
Quinter, Kansas, pop. 918: “Free land and water. Move here.” Quinter had some brief
national notoriety in 2006 when longtime resident Waldo McBurney, age 104, was
proclaimed the oldest worker in the United States. The town was built at the
site of an old railroad switching station called Melota. It was renamed in the
1880s after a local Baptist Brethren minister, Rev. James Quinter. I suppose
rural farm life continues to be a tough sell to young people; the median age
here is 48 years. It has to be tough being a 48 year old farmer and wondering
who is going to take over your farm when you retire. Quinter’s soda fountain is
pretty cool, though… 
The
highlight of our trip across Kansas was stopping at Milford Lake State Park,
where we had a “Prime” campsite looking out onto Kansas’ largest lake. (Often very expensive, this site was only $22.50 per night, a real bargain!) Not everyone liked it, though... we are
out of prairie dog land, and squirrel country is still ahead of us, so the
puppies were a bit put out. As we say, “It’s a dog’s life.” (This photo shows the view from our coach in this idyllic spot).
The lake
was just an overnight stop, but the next morning we again visited Fort
Riley, KS, home of the First Infantry Division, the Big Red One. It was a brief
side trip just to use the gym, where the average age was 22… (geez, I could be
their grandfather!) Some of the guys in the weight room looked like The
Incredible Hulk, with biceps bigger than my thighs. One young man was wearing an
Altitude Training Mask that reduced the amount of air he was breathing to
simulate high altitudes (like Afghanistan). He was breathing like Darth Vader
in Star Wars, but it evidently works. Many of these soldiers will be returning
to A-stan in the near future, and their time back in Kansas is spent training
and preparing for their next deployment, wherever that might be. I suggested to My Lovely Bride that she might want to wear one of these while jogging around The Villages next Spring in anticipation of our return to the Rockies. For some reason, she did not seem to appreciate this idea.
We had
dinner Friday night at the Elks Lodge in Grandview, Missouri, with a very
friendly group of locals, including one gentleman who just bought a house in The
Villages, in the new area south of 466A. When his buddy found out that we were
from TV, he asked me, “Are you a Republican?” “Yes, I am,” I replied, a bit surprised,
“Why?” He said, “Well, Ed here is a Democrat, and we told him that there
weren’t any Democrats in The Villages… He’s going to be pretty lonely
down there! Ha, ha, ha!” I assured Ed that while his party might be in the
minority in The Villages, I had heard of at least two Democrats, so he would probably
have someone to talk politics to when
he moved down…” 
Oh, and Rudy and Gretchen asked me to include a paragraph on their latest conquest... this morning we were walking in the field where we were parked, and we startled a huge groundhog. He must have weighed 30 lbs., and was bigger than both our puppies put together. He dove back into his hole, but our fierce Dachshunds made enough noise to keep him in that hole for a week. They would have gone in after him had they not been on leads... that would have been ugly! (This critter looks as intimidating as a sumo wrestler!)
It’s nice
being just one time zone away from home, even though our return is still a
month away. Suzanne can call her mom and not worry about being three hours
early (or late) by mistake. Also, we won’t be getting calls from friends who
may have forgotten that we were out west at our 0600/their 0900, when they have
already finished breakfast and the front nine at the golf course and we’re
still enjoying blissful slumber in the dark.
We are now
in Perry, Iowa, again at an Elks Lodge, with 50 amp electrical hookup, which they had just wired today, especially for us! (That was a real blessing, because the temps are still in the 90s during the day. Normally we have to settle for 30 amps, and we have to use our appliances and air conditioning sparingly so as not to overload the electrical circuits.) I got to
watch the last few minutes of the Central Illinois vs. Iowa Hawkeyes football
game this afternoon at the Elks bar when I checked in. Unfortunately, the home
team lost by 3 points. It was not a happy place. What was nice was the Pizza
Hut just across the street, where we got two medium pan pizzas for $10.70. You
can’t beat that in The Villages! Tomorrow morning we’re going on a bike ride on
the High Trestle Trail north of Des Moines. The trail follows abandoned railway
tracks and a ½ mile long, 13 story high trestle over the Des Moines River
valley, one of the largest railroad bridges in the world. Here is the bridge
lighted up at night; unfortunately, we arrived too tired to ride that late…
You may not
be aware that southern Iowa was the site of several Utopian communities back in
the 19th Century. Many of these folks left European countries which
had been racked by revolutions, and sought to create a simple, egalitarian,
communal life unconnected with the wider American society. Most failed within a
decade or two; the most successful was the Amana Colony, a group of 6 villages
on 18,000 acres around Iowa City. These villages flourished until the 1930s, when
the stresses and freedoms of modern society became too great for many members
to resist. English language services in many Amana churches were introduced
only in the 1960s, and many are still bilingual (German and English). (Many of
these communities are mistaken for Amish, but the Amanians do not generally use
buggies, for example).
Tomorrow we
also depart Perry, Iowa on our next leg to Coon Rapids (I’m not making this up;
people actually live there!), Minnesnowta to visit our good friend Terri of the
Frozen North, who has had some recent medical challenges and needs some
cheering up. Maybe I’ll recreate my “Keta salmon makes me bark like a dog”
routine for her… and maybe not, unless I want to sleep outside under the coach.
(My Lovely Bride rarely loses her normally terrific sense of humor, but after a
week of my barking, I think she’s finally getting weary of it.)
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