I left El Dorado this morning around 8:00 and rode over to Wichita to see a couple of their “Old Town” museums. “Old Town” is a pretty gentrified section of Wichita that dates back to the cattle drive days. Anyway, the first stop was the Coleman Company (as in camp stoves) Museum:
This was a pretty short stop, but they did have some interesting artifacts dating from late in the 19th century. Interesting…the company got its start because Mr. Coleman wanted to bring improved lighting to people who didn’t yet have electricity. Another interesting point, most of this stuff sounds like it could just as easily blow up in your face as give you light to read the newspaper by:
By the time I left the Coleman Museum, it was still too early for the other museums to be open, so I headed on out of town. Took US54 west as far as Mullinville, then on to US400 to Garden City. East of Garden City, the terrain was much as I had seen yesterday. Flat, dry, dead fields everywhere, and temps in the low 100’s. This picture was taken west of Pratt, KS, and you can see how dry things are:
Further west, though, past Garden City, you could see that the farmers were irrigating their fields and actually had crops to harvest. I saw many, many semi’s loaded with huge bales of hay, headed (you guessed it!) EAST.
From Garden City to Lamar was 100 miles or so, and as we climbed in elevation (Lamar is around 3500’ above sea level), it got cooler (mid-80’s) and the fields were green and irrigated.
Tomorrow, I’ll be following US50 West to Montrose, CO, with stops in Pueblo (Air Museum), Canon City (Royal Gorge), and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
Miles today: 366 Total: 1,830
