Travel day

Today we were moving some three hours northeast to the small town of Larned, Kansas where there are a number of sites associated with the Santa Fe Trail. This area we traversed had miles of wheat fields and cattle range, but we could always pick out the towns from a great distance due to the grain elevators towering in the sky. Most of those towns seemed to be mere shells of what they once were, with numerous vacant buildings in what was once a thriving business district.

It's not the lonely stone steps from a long ago demolished building that Linda is sitting on, it is an upping block, also known as an carriage stone. We are always on the lookout for something new, and here it was. It was used by a lady in a long skirt to mount a horse or get into a carriage. How distorted our view of the 1800's is because of movies and TV. Ladies wore long dresses that covered neck, wrists and ankles, never pants. Ladies rode a horse side saddle, never astride. A ladies used upping blocks. Times have certainly changed, haven't they.

All around us the winter wheat harvest is full swing, and Linda is excited as a little girl in a candy store. She loves to watch the giant combines move through the fields, the grain carts pull up next to them as the combines unload the wheat without ever stopping. The grain dust in the air, elicited a "Isn't that smell wonderful" from her, and I could see in my minds eye a young girl driving a tractor on the family farm [Editor's Comment-I only did drive the tractor a few times, but they were memorable]. I missed that part of her Life, but the past 45 years we have shared has been more than awesome. Lucky Bob.

When I stopped at a cemetery so I could wander among the tombstones, what did Linda do, she headed across the road and out into an unharvested wheat field. I lost track of her as I searched for the unusual tombstone, but found none. I wondered in the zinc tombstone salesman never got off the train in this town, or maybe he was run out of town on a rail. No zinc tombstones, no woodmen of the world tombstones, just the markers for hard working farmers that made America the greatest country in the world.

After downloading Linda's photos and discovering a half dozen or so photos of wheat, some in focus and some out of focus, I selected this one for inclusion in todays Daily Journal. After what I heard after posting that out of focus flower photo yesterday, it is going to longer than a coons age before I post an out of focus Linda photo again. Bad Bob for posting it. Good Bob for realizing that it should never be done again. Till next time that is.

Traveling and watching the wheat harvest while standing in a cemetery wasn't all we did today. We also drove out to several sites where there were Santa Fe Trail ruts still visible on the landscape. They are not the furrows where the wagon wheels traveled, they are undulations that have been filled in during the last 150 or so years. Here is Linda experiencing the joy of standing in the track where those wagons once traveled while I tried to figure out how to best take the picture.

Not everyone appreciates history. Some people care nothing for history, yet think that a certain type of music is something that everyone should appreciate. For others it is only the fastest drive to travel from winter quarters to summer quarters, or to get to where the next rally is being held. Everyone lives life differently. We are glad we have chosen to Live the Life we Live. How about YOU?