So, continuing on our adventure....
We continued on our road.... hey, there's some civilization out here!
We weren't sure if someone lived there or not.
Red tailed hawk
and some wild turkeys
Hey, a nice road!
Oh oh...
We could tell we were probably close to Cedar Point so before turning on the East road (we pulled out another diamond card from the deck of cards), we went to see how close we were to highway 50.
Highway 50!
Turned back as we needed to find that east road.
Someone is building a fancy southern style house!
Such a pretty mill!
I'm sure it was magnificent in its day.
Moving?
Ah, the road that goes east!
It ended up in a field.
So we turned around and went back to Cedar Point and jumped onto Highway 50 to find another road that would take us east. One thing about the highway - it sure was SMOOTH riding!
We got off at Clements and followed the winding road. Surely we would come across a road that would head off east.
We passed the natural arch bridge. Hard to see with all the brush.
It is a must see though.
You can even walk on the bridge.
I didn't happen to take this picture below, but we did go here during our Kansas trips a few years ago.
The road meandured all around....south, east, west....
We passed this ranch as we headed west.
And again on the other side of the hill headed south.
Hey, here's a road headed east!
See the sign? The road doesn't look so bad, does it?
It was getting pretty rugged. The pictures don't show it. Al put the truck into 4 wheel drive.
We had to cross this creek a couple of times but we could see that someone else had been there. We could see tracks ahead of us. If they could do it....
S - L - O - W going. Bumpety. Bump. Lots of rock.
And obstacles in the road!
Never fear! We were on a mission.
Quite frankly, I was thinking to myself - what if Al has a stroke or heart attack or some medical emergency. I have dog phobia and I'm afraid of cougars so there is no way I'm walking to some ranch to seek help. I did bring along pepper spray, but if I spray some cowboy's dog, he's going to shoot me with his rifle!
I guess we would just stay in the truck until help arrived but that could be weeks until someone comes along this path!! There is NO CELL phone coverage here! At least I did bring some chocolate!
We finally got out of that rocky area and into the flint hills. Love it!!
Another fairly nice maintained road!
It took us to Highway 177 south of Strong City.
We had gone through 1/3rd of the deck of cards and had been on the road for about 5 hours.
Ready to head home.
Such a beautiful road!
We noticed that there was a road going east of Matfield Green and we decided to take it. We can always travel the highways! And we were on an adventure!
This road took us back into the flint hills, into open range country.
Cattle guards across the road keep the cattle in certain pasture land.
This guy was on his tractor trying to get cell service. Good luck with that!!
We found ourselves on a road we'd been on before! We made it to Burns and then drove south to 1st street.
Past the school our kids attended.
Back to civilization and road construction.
I tried to write out approximately the area we covered for those of you who know the area.
The cool thing about this card game is that it would be different every time you played it!
When I was growing up, the missionaries we were with considered playing cards a sin. I remember mom telling us, "Don't tell any of them that we play!" Well, I understand how gambling isn't the best thing to do, but this card game was sooooo much fun! We went places we will never ever go again I am sure.
A friend of mine gave us the suggestion that we keep the Jack as a 10 but make the Queen a 20, the King 30 and the Ace 40-45! That would get us further out in the country! Good suggestion!
If anyone wants to go with us on another adventure with a deck of cards, just give us a call!
Willard (the great blue heron to the left of the picture) and Edna (the great egret to the right)
