2 of 12 – 2024 Fall Trip West Series. This post covers 6 days of our trip from Clay Center, KS to Colorado Springs, CO.

The Farm Animals: “Gabby” (a Great Pyrenees) protects the farm and watches over visitors. She slept right outside the RV each night to keep us safe from coyotes. I think the donkey in the photo is “Daisy” but there are also two others named “Jethro” and “Sadie.” Then there is “Ginger”, a shy puppy that rules inside the house, and of course the chickens. Not shown are a multitude of cats that run around outside.

A sobering event: we visited the Republican City Cemetery to put flowers on Daniel’s grave. Daisies were blooming nearby. The windchimes had been a gift to Lizzy from her coworkers for Daniel’s memorial service. She didn’t have a place for the chimes so Deanne took them home to Kansas. They make a nice sound at the “old milk barn” where Becky grew up milking dairy cows.

Another highlight was riding in a combine with Becky’s cousin Ron. Ron makes it look easy doing 10 things at once while cutting corn. Here’s a a very wonky video I took of the amazing experience.

Two last pics before leaving Clay Center: The latest downtown ‘mural’ painting on a grain bin is called “Prairie Thunder” by Christian Stanley. It is awesome and so was the sunrise view from our RV. The mural recently won viewers choice in 10th place of “Best Murals of the World” and was the only mural in the top 50 located in the United States. Go Clay Center! Here’s a link to recent mural article: https://kclyradio.com/blog/prairie-thunder-lands-10-in-international-competition-of-best-murals-of-the-world/

The Kamphaus farm driveway is right on US Highway 24. We jumped right on 24 and headed West to a must-see Kansas attraction at Cawker City: “The Worlds Largest Ball of Twine”… circumference 46 feet

We stayed long enough to see the amazing sight… and read some signs explaining the history of the giant ball of twine.

Here’s how it began: Frank Stoeber was born in 1891. At the age of 62, in 1953, he stumbles across some twine and decides to gather it up to burn. Instead of burning it, he decides to roll it up into a ball. He must have enjoyed that, or there wasn’t much else to do in the 50’s (when I was born) because three years later, in 1956 the ball is 7′ around and weighs over 4,000 pounds. It progresses from there. You need to visit for the rest of the story.

Directly across the street (highway 24) was a restored old gas station that was more photogenic than the twine.

Next stop heading West was the National Historic Site Visitors Center in Nicodemus, Kansas. The town was founded in 1877 by recently freed African Americans, mostly from Lexington, Kentucky. It’s the oldest and only remaining Black settlement west of the Mississippi River.

This was an interesting place to visit. The visitors center is the nicest building in what is now a very small, nearly abandoned town. The 2020 census counted 14 people, 78% African-American. Some of the towns people and nearby residents are direct descendants of the original founders. I am so glad we stopped to see the town and learn the history of this place and period of American history. I am also glad my tax dollars are preserving a history that would otherwise by lost.

The founding of Nicodemus is tightly connected to the Homestead Act (visit to that National Historic Site is described in previous post) and Emancipation.

Still traveling West we visited a Kansas geological attraction:

People say “middle of nowhere” all the time but this remote State Park should be the definition. Early settlers called the area “Little Jerusalem” because they thought it resembled the ancient walled city of Jerusalem. Some also called it “Castle City”.

Moving on we drove a bunch of dusty dirt roads to arrive at another Kansas geological landmark called “Monument Rocks”. This place is just plain weird. There are no signs, no visitors center. If there was a sign it would say “No Really; the middle of nowhere”.

We met back up with Jennie and Roni (they did not do all the sightseeing we did on this first day) and stayed the night in Colby, KS. We stopped at Walmart on the way out of Colby so Deanne could buy another foam mattress topper for the uncomfortable overhead bunk bed… We continued on to Colorado Springs. But that’s a story for the next post.