We listened for more rumbling storms during the night. It seems that they mostly have gone through the area, but we don’t get that many summer storms in Southern California so it was nice to have some good rain coming down. By morning the sky was a bright blue and sunny
Another 500 mile day and 8 hours of driving. We quickly turned off Interstate 40 and headed northeast primarily on two-lane highways. A couple of hours through northwest New Mexico, then an hour in the northern tip of Texas, briefly passing on to the panhandle of Oklahoma, before entering Kansas. We were struck by both how flat this part of the Great Plains were and how much greener it was once east of the Rockies. Kansas look lush, frequently with standing water from recent rains. Dick always watches the farms. Central Pivot Irrigation has turned much of this land into very productive farm land but depleting the huge aquifer under much of the western plains. The corn, such a high water demand crop, was shorter than he expected. Very little seem to be headed for “knee-high by the Fourth of July“ both of us had learned when we were growing up. The winter wheat was being harvested. A rail line paralleled the road for much of the time in Kansas. Every few miles there was a large grain elevator, holding grain until shipped out by rail. In spite of some people being against green generation of electricity, we saw many windmills appearing to march across the landscape.
During the morning, we were able to enjoy finishing our book about the small Canadian town who opened their hearts and their homes too strangers from around the world after 9/11. That was a really great book. And there is also a play, “Come From Away” which we will see in September. Of course we had to listen to the Original Cast Recording of "Oklahoma" during our relatively short time in the state.
We know we’re driving by some places that would be fun to stop and explore, but this time we are people on a mission. We’ve got to get to Minnesota tomorrow. So we keep moving forward, over 2000 miles in four days.
We arrived, checked into our hotel and then grabbed a quick meal at Wendy’s. We settled in for an evening watching some basketball and surfing the Internet. Tomorrow another long day's drive and then time for Patti’s family to begin gathering in Minnesota for the wedding on Saturday.
One of the interesting things in this hotel was in addition to a Gideon Bible there is also a copy of the Bahamas Gita, an ancient Hindu scripture. Not necessarily what I was thinking I would find in the middle of Kansas.. But, we do know a lot of the hotels are owned or managed by people of Indian descent. Just a little cultural diversity.
We had seen a couple of warnings about potential tornadoes as we’re driving along. No tornadoes yet, but once we returned from dinner, the creepy sky is the kind that Dick only saw once before a major tornado in Ohio. We just checked and we are in a tornado watch area, which means there is the kind of atmospheric conditions where tornadoes could form.
While we were watching the game the Direct TV suddenly went off the air. When we looked outside we could see it was raining very hard. Then our phones alerted us to our being in the middle of a Tornado Warning. That meant a tornado was located near us, probably seen on radar. We prepared to shelter in the bathroom but it never became necessary. The storm passed. We were thankful. Oh, the adventures of travel!!
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