Today was our last morning in Loveland; they were very sorry to see us leave. We had a lingering breakfast at The Egg and I, a local breakfast shop. OMG! Dan and I had just planned to have toast, but since they wanted to treat us we had big breakfasts and felt full all day long. We had our sweet waitress take out picture.We rode for several hours with me taking my famous 70mph photos out the side windows. I just can’t seem to catch the vistas, how far you can see, with my little camera. You can see my attempts in the photos.
We had lunch somewhere along the line, stopping for gas and hitting up the local Subway. We’d seen signs for a park so here we went. We asked a local guy where it was and he was so funny. “Damn,” he said. “You know how it is when you live here; you just don’t pay attention to street names.” We learned enough to find it. We could tell by the trees. There were actually two parks and inquiries were met with ‘which one…the one with trees or without?’
We got there in time to see the local police dept. doing vehicle inspections along the edge of the park. Lights blinking, signals turning! What a town in the middle of America!After lunch we rode for a while until we found an antique place to explore right across the street from Prairie Dog Town (no, we didn’t) Gosh! Could they squeeze anything more into this building. There were stone fence posts out front. When pioneers first came to these parts there weren’t any trees to make fencing out of. The area is full of them, some still in use!
We passed the Cathedral of the Prairies, which I got a long-distance photo of. We visited that on our last trip. I photographed one more before we stopped for the night; I think there should be several more tomorrow if we don’t change our I-70 route. Speculation is high that we will ditch the interstate and head more towards the south to avoid storms.
Right now it’s 9:18pm central time, after 10 by my sleep-deprived body. The sun is still out and we’ve just had supper in Russell, KS. We’d stopped in Hays and even gotten a room, but when we opened the door it was less than expected and we voided our stay. This room is much much better and includes our beloved refrigerator and microwave (without the extra cost those other people expected.
Today at 2pm a local grain elevator collapsed. When we heard about it on the radio they hadn’t found anyone missing. That changed while we rode. We had supper across the street where we overheard a lady talking, saying her kids’ ball game had been cancelled and that ‘you could feel it in the neighborhood – everything was so somber.’ She had bought food to go to feed the guys. The news on TV confirmed that two teens were killed. Very sad – these elevators are humongous; I can’t imaging being buried alive.
Well, you’re caught up now. I’ve spied a 650 foot deep salt mine near here that we might go check out tomorrow. We’re playing things by ear now and hardly using a map at all.
