We're just home from our fourth road trip to Kansas, 2550 miles round trip. It's just amazing for me to see the space that some of you live in and it's easy to see why you wouldn't trade it for anything.
Two highlights for us, other than spending time with the kids, were the Amish cooking and the windmill farm under construction in Pratt County. We had an Amish buffet for supper in Evansville, Illinois and lunch at an Amish cafe somewhere between Pratt and Medicine Lodge. Both were outstanding. While we were eating lunch, two trucks, each carrying one windmill blade and driving way too fast, passed the cafe. Those blades are huge.
The windmill farm seems to stretch forever. My son and I went to the gun range to squeeze off a few 9mm cartridges near the windmills, which aren't turning yet. It's a heckuva sight for an Easterner. I hope some surveyors are making some money out of these things.
Just thought I'd share; carry on.
Space. Our frontier.
Gotta go. Laramie just came on the TV. This episode was aired in 1960.
Eastern Kansas has (I think I remember the name) the Flint Hills. Just a big swatch of prairie between Wichita and Topeka. It is impressive and vast. I can't imagine crossing it in a wagon as so many did. Would've drove me nuts..
According to the Internet, Flint Hills is the largest piece of natural prairie left in the world. It is impressive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_Hills
They start in the oil-rich Osage Hills of Oklahoma and almost extend to the Nebraska border.
We entered Flint Hills just past Emporia on the toll road. I enjoyed looking at the rocks in the road cuts almost as much as the prairie. My wife's parents raised beef cattle, so she knew what she was looking at when we saw cows, but her real love is horses.
Plenty of horses in the Flint Hills and people of all ages who know how to ride them to full advantage.
Notre Dame football fans still trek to the site of where the plane crashed with Knute Rockne near Bazaar.
I wish we had seen some horses there. We did see a few around Wichita and very few in Kentucky, near Lexington. I had no idea that Knute Rockne died in the Flint Hills.
Kansas is just plain amazing. It's a long way from anywhere to anywhere, but the trips are so pleasant. I love visiting there.
MathTeacher, post: 389004, member: 7674 wrote: ...My wife's parents raised beef cattle, so she knew what she was looking at when we saw cows, but her real love is horses.
Never had horse. I guess with some 57 Steak Sauce it would probably be pretty good...
Holy Cow, post: 388947, member: 50 wrote: Laramie just came on the TV. This episode was aired in 1960
And it finally made it across the open plains of Kansas to TV sets in June of 1966
paden cash, post: 389011, member: 20 wrote: Never had horse. I guess with some 57 Steak Sauce it would probably be pretty good...
Are you absolutely, positively sure?
I missed my guess on the episode of Laramie. Turns out it was aired in April 1961. As Monte opined, however, one needed electricity, a TV station nearby and a TV set to see it, which might not have been the case everywhere in 1961.
25 Apr. 1961
Killer Odds
Jess finds a starved drifter who thinks Jess wants to shoot him. Slim and Jess offer him a job as he turns out to be a good worker but very reclusive. The father of a man he killed in a fair fight is sending hired guns after him.
paden cash, post: 388954, member: 20 wrote: Eastern Kansas has (I think I remember the name) the Flint Hills. Just a big swatch of prairie between Wichita and Topeka. It is impressive and vast. I can't imagine crossing it in a wagon as so many did. Would've drove me nuts..
I read (long ago)that one of the underlying sociological reasons for the development of the prohibition laws and temperance movement in Kansas was related to the topography of the Great Plains.
Besides the obvious drunkenness of males and associated violence both domestic and public, there was a hidden major problem with pioneer and farm wives .
Living on the wide open prairie, they experienced feelings of isolation which led to a depressive state of mind. Many women were alcoholics and became suicidal from their remote lonely environment lives and being cut off like on an island in a sea of grass.
It wasn't all 'Little House on the Prairie",
I wonder if the current dry counties in Kansas reflect this topography.
[USER=20]@paden cash[/USER] , I think you would have been fine crossing the prairie with you bottle(s) of hootch at your side.
I drove around Kansas a lot years ago and visited the whole state for a job that I had. Nice people and one always had a sense of personal security as opposed to other places.
I guess that is why xenophobia is common.
I did have some wonderful Mennonite breakfasts and got caught in a unexpected sleet Storm between Dodge City and nowhere which wasnt fun.
Robert Hill, post: 389107, member: 378 wrote: I think you would have been fine crossing the prairie with you bottle(s) of hootch at your side..
25 year old Scotch would've probably been hard to find back then....I probably would have made do with the 12 year old stuff....;)
Just cause the folks in DC voted in prohibition doesn't mean the whole country knew about it. News traveled by radio and newspapers, so if you lived in the middle of a wheatfield and owned a still, you might just not care what DC politicians said. I bet MathTeacher can attest to the fact that if a person was calm and cool, and quiet about it, they could do just about anything in the middle of the vast plains of Kansas without very many people taking notice.
Monte, post: 389258, member: 11913 wrote: Just cause the folks in DC voted in prohibition doesn't mean the whole country knew about it. News traveled by radio and newspapers, so if you lived in the middle of a wheatfield and owned a still, you might just not care what DC politicians said. I bet MathTeacher can attest to the fact that if a person was calm and cool, and quiet about it, they could do just about anything in the middle of the vast plains of Kansas without very many people taking notice.
Really don't like to spout politics here but prohibition laws were enacted in the Kansas constitution about 40 years before the US constitutional amendment. That being said... I'm sure there were home brewers everywhere.
Robert Hill, post: 389263, member: 378 wrote: Really don't like to spout politics here but prohibition laws were enacted in the Kansas constitution about 40 years before the US constitutional amendment. That being said... I'm sure there were home brewers everywhere.
Can't speak for Kansas. But when the 21st. Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed late in 1933 repealing prohibition, it remained in Oklahoma due to the fact it was written into the State Constitution. Oklahoma did not repeal prohibition until 1959 and there were plenty of "bootleggers" around. The holy grail of liquor was actual bottled, labeled and taxed spirits that were sold at commissaries on military bases and posts. Being federal and not state property it was legal.
I was a schoolboy then. We weren't able to buy a mixed drink at a bar or restaurant until I had kids in middle school. I think the "prairie" does something to folks' brains.....
Good things, that is. It helps to discourage the riffraff from wanting to move in and ruin things.
Holy Cow, post: 389268, member: 50 wrote: Good things, that is. It helps to discourage the riffraff from wanting to move in and ruin things.
Oklahoma crooks and riff-raff moved in and built themselves a big office building they call the State Capitol.
But, they were too cheap to put a dome on top of it like everyone else. I'm surprised they didn't go with a unicameral government system like Nebraska.
