5-31 America's Courtyard

Today was the longest day of travel yet. 15 hours and 822 odd miles later we made it from Ouachita Lake, AR to Goodland, KS. We plowed right through Oklahoma; didn’t see much but a whole lot of flatness, Tulsa, derricks, and windmills. 

 

At first we were planning on camping at Glen Elder State Park, KS. We got there, cooked dinner, and decided instead to get a head start on the drive to CO. It was a nice looking lake with gar coming up to feed, but a bit flooded.

No road trip would be complete without a strange roadside attraction, so we stopped at the World’s Largest Ball of Sisal Twine in Cawker City, KS, just 5 minutes from our campsite. Boy is that a lot of twine. We stumbled upon another point of interest on our way across the state, finding ourselves smack dab in the geometric center of the United States (well, technically we were 3 miles off, but who’s counting?). 

 

Kansas was like driving through a time warp. You can see derelict buildings left over from the dust bowl era. Between each little town was nothing but roads and fields. Even driving at night you could barely see any lights or signs of civilization. During the day though it was very lush, green and amber spanning to the horizon on all sides. The roads are almost all in a grid formation, so you can really only drive in the cardinal directions. It was quite the change of pace.

Instead of camping for the night, we slept in the van in a Wal-Mart Super Center parking lot in Goodland, KS, not far from the CO border. We parked ourselves between an Airstream and some other campers so we didn’t feel so alone. Not the best sleep I’ve ever had, but it was free and gave us a huge head start toward Steamboat Springs, CO.