Well, this post I could have done a lot quicker, but Ryan and I had seen so many places that I had to go about looking at another road map of Kansas. Before Kansas can even be considered, the ‘Garden of the Gods’ deserves a say about it. Imagine, being in the Colorado region and being completely surrounded by various shades of green, this topped off with caps of white snow and a beautiful shade of sunrise colours. You would think it strange to get an explosion of colour similar to Uluru, but this is what you would get if you were to be in Colorado Springs and head to the ‘Garden of the Gods.’ This is a region of the natural environment where there seems to be a higher concentration of iron, then in the surrounding area. The contrast of red rocks surrounded by mountains, grassy regions, contrasting colours and animals made this place one definite haven for relaxation. For majority of our time there, Ryan and I wandered around. Because of the freshness of the morning, we ended up running sections of the parkland. Some of the rock formations had fairly interesting names, especially the camels kissing. Others were fairly obvious, such as balancing rock and church spires. This entire region, if slightly rushed, was possible in a bit less then two hours. By a bit after 8am we were at the end of our ‘Garden of the Gods’ experience.
Driving, that was a good portion of the day. Not all of the day involved only driving, well actually the remainder of the time in Colorado was driving. Back in Ryan’s home state, of Kansas, we got to one of the most violent towns of the western times, Boot City. The original plans for the city was to be a dry town while passage of (maybe) bison was occurring. Due to a region of the city being dry, just down the traveling road a bit, actually just outside of the dry region, the city was recreated. This allowance for alcohol, and lack of… authority, made Boot City one of the more violent cities in the region. The city itself had based itself on tourism. If anyone has been to Sovereign Hill, Ballarat, then you would kind of know the set up of the paying region of Boot City. The normal section of Boot City was trying to hold on to some of the more traditional ways of the region, in terms of buildings. Also, over the pavement were medallions symbolising various actors who had been in a movie filmed in Boot City, about the hardships of the time, and the criminal acts that took place. After seeing a few of these tourist attractions, Ryan wanted to show me one of the most unique overlooks, I’d like to say, in the world. Driving out of Boot City, we drove past a bunch of stencils of cowboys, then Ryan pulled out at a top of a hill. Behind a sign, we were able to overlook huge fields that were designated for cows. Not all of the fields had cows throughout them, but it could be seen that during peak time there was an intense number of beef on legs. As we could see, there were only about a thousand or two of cows.
After having a bit of a laugh at this tourist attraction, we went about driving the back way to where Ryan’s grandparents lived. Our aim was to see how close we could get to Greensborg, where the tornado had caused enough pandaemonium to allow for all the services, including the National Guard, to try and allow for some peace and order into the mess. The world’s deepest hand dug well was officially non-existent, and as we starting heading towards the Old Boot City there were signs saying no entry permitted within a certain distance to the affected area. Back road experience in Kansas, well, it was the most direct detour in this case. Getting onto the original road, we headed to Ryan’s grandparents’ town. Before getting to Ryan’s grandparent’s town, we went by the town that his mum was born in. The beauty with this town, too, was the fact that one of the local team’s names had recently changed. It had changed in conjunction with the recent addition of the latest tourist attraction, wind turbines. After the thrill of seeing over 60 turbines, we went to the town that Ryan predominantly grew up in, name forgotten but this was where his grandparents, as well as a couple of aunts, had spent a good part of their life in. After seeing several sites in the town, including the dining hall that three schools shared, seeing the house his grandparents were in for some length and the local cemetery, it was time to push on forth.
The town that Ryan’s mum had grown up in had had no traffic lights in, so while in the midst of training for driving, people would have to drive up to the nearby town that had one or two sets of lights in them. This town, with the traffic lights, also had another famous site to visit. Pawnee Rock was less then a couple of hundred feet from the surrounding low points. Now Pawnee Rock was renowned for the fact that there had been three, or four great tribes of the native Americans, who had used this vantage point to observe bison, initially, and then white settlers, finally. Before forgetting about everything that had happened, several days before this entry, maybe while we were climbing towards Little Devil Tower, we decided to have both child and man names in regards to the native Americans. I remember the man names: Ryan was ‘Hunting Bison,’ I was ‘Quiet Noise.’ Our child names were in reference to events that had happened while we were born: I was born during a sand storm and Ryan during a tornado. Any how, we got a few photos of this dimple in the land and moved on. Traveling as directly as possible to the Flint Hills, to see a castle, we were once again detoured. The good thing about Ryan and I traveling this detoured way was the ability to see the marshes of Kansas, where it had been a common theme to see some variety of bird life.
OK, so my memory is helping me in some of the right places, heading towards the Scandinavian town, in Kansas, Ryan showed me the site that would definitely raise eyebrows. On one of the high points of the Flint Hills was the Coronada Heights. This was a very basic castle like structure. The original aim was to attract families. Ryan and I managed to get to this place at a perfect time. People were non existent and the sun was coming down in the perfect motion. After us climbing around for near to an hour, we were starting to get a bit of the desire to eat. As we were heading off, a couple of cars came along. The people in the car were all looking like college students who were under 21. Ryan said that the whole attempt to make Coronada Heights a family attraction was over powered by the number of students that would come here, typically at sunset, and sink a few.
Driving through the nearby town (I think originally settled by a bunch of people from Sweden), we drove past a number of wooden horses. Apparently this was one of the draw cards to the town. Within a small area of one intersection, I was able to see about six or seven horses. We drove through the town and headed down to the road that was cut off at a point a bit South West of where we now stood. At the intersection, we headed in the SW direction for some Montana Mikes. This place, Montana Mikes, is the equivalent to the Outback Steakhouse, but for the state of Montana. As we were pulling into the steakhouse, fog was rolling in from the Southerly direction, bloody thick stuff this time. Lights were nearly clouded over and they were just across the road. In Montana Mikes we chose the non smoking section, but to no avail, the smoke was still able to waft through. While the food was OK, the service reminded me of the time in Memphis with Nick at the diner with the angry lady who looked like she hated life, except here the guy just seemed interested in trying to hop outside to suck down a cigarette.
Anyway, after our meal and under tipping, we headed back to Ryan’s place in Emporia.
