We make it to Kansas

Liberal, Kansas....

We left the campground about 9:30 and made our way to the interstate headed North... I 25 goes up into Colorado from Santa Fe and we thought we were headed North, until I turned the GPS on..  Yep, going straight East......  and then South, around the mountains on our left side....

Its kind of a narrow pass at places and the train track is running along side of the roadway... We make it up to 7400 feet, but that wasn't much of a deal as we were at 6500 in Santa Fe.  Eventually we turn back North and start to descend...  It wasn't much of a pass, without any of those long grinding up hill grades that slow the motorhome down to a crawl..  But it was nicely picturesque with fir trees and mountains on both sides...

Since this is essentially the route of the Santa Fe trail, I couldn't help but visualize the wagons as they navigated this route..  How many of the folks that eventually inhabited the Southwest passed thru this same area on the Santa Fe trail?  And then the railroad followed the same route, and now its an interstate highway....  Did it start as an Indian path?

About a half hours drive North of Las Vegas, as in New Mexico, not Nevada.... you meet the turn for Highway 56...  It heads East and proudly displays signs that it too is the Santa Fe trail....  Its rather sparsely populated for miles and miles...  Everyone we met was driving a pickup pulling a stock trailer...

We press on having lunch across from a police station in the town of Clayton, Nm...  This town is on the corner where Texas and Oklahoma touch New Mexico... Again it is fairly small, and the police station is next to the fire house, and some of the city offices as well...

As we sit and eat our lunch, folks were filing into one of the offices at a steady pace.  Cars coming and leaving.  We decided that these folks must be going in to pay for some sort of utility, since it is the first part of the month..  They all seem to know each other, as they stop and talk on the sidewalk for several minutes before leaving....  Wonder what they thought of the big blue motorhome in the parking lot across the street...  It obviously didn't fit in.....

Oklahoma is rather poor out in the very Western edge of the panhandle and many of the towns reflect this condition, as buildings are abandoned and tumbling down...  Its beginning to be a hot one as well because my thermometer on the MH went above the 100 mark as we passed Boise City....

We eventually cross into Kansas, and things do seem to look up, as there were more fields that were irrigated with growing crops....  Temps were now 102....  At Hugoton, Ks the marque said 104 and the MH gauge agreed, the dash air and roof ACs were running at full bore and not keeping up....  The inside temp was 95 and climbing.....  Enough!!

I changed directions and headed for Liberal, where I know there is a campground about 5 miles North on Highway 54...  They have 50 Amp pedestals , and I need that about now...  But as we arrived in town I turned back toward the South, heading for the Love's station that has less pricey diesel.....  We both fill up...   Ouch..!

So tonight we are camped in a rather large gravel parking lot with full hookups at every site..  No grass, no trees, just a couple of buildings for the bath house and laundry and some service buildings in the back.

And once we parked and started the ACs on the grid power, it took quite a while to cool things off....  We had both roof airs and the portable going, but as they labored the sky to the East began to have that dark blue color of a storm....  The clouds towered above us and slowly marched back West...  Against the prevailing winds.....   Uh, that's not good.....  Remember Liberal is where Dorothy and Toto lived??

And in a mere moment of time the wind went to gale force, and I was rushing to pull in the big slide as the canvas topper was flapping so hard it about ripped off...  Then the wind came even harder, and I pulled in the remaining slides as well.  Then came the hail, and it sounded like being inside a drum...

Eventually things settled down and we went back into town for a sandwich, but it never stopped raining.  I tried to put the slides back out when we returned, but the wind keeps whipping them, so the big slide will remain in for the rest of the night.... Just like it did last night down in Santa Fe....

Retired Rod        

Oh, I didn't even mention the train track across the road,   very busy......!  Woo Woooooo.....