the Grabers: Adventuring some more

Allen and I enjoy adventuring together! Our granddaughter in Arkansas was having a swim meet so we decided to go. As long as we were headed there, we might as well make it an adventure and go on a few roads that we'd never traveled before.

We began the trip onto 54, a route we have taken at times, although we generally take 400. This takes us through the Flinthills. I LOVE the Flinthills of Kansas!

Look at this photo that was posted on Facebook yesterday!

The Flinthills from the sky.

I was commenting to Al about how green everything was for Kansas in July.

We've had quite a bit of rain this year.

Watch out, Mr. Armadillo!

(he did make it safely across the road, we observed in the rear view mirror)

We decided to drive around Eureka.

The Greenwood Hotel was built in 1882 to "house visitors involved in the burgeoning cattle industry." It has been restored to its glory days and today is available for special events. Someday, we will have to stop and have a look-see!

A tornado ripped through town a couple of weeks ago.

Clean up was underway.

I love this house! It reminds me of a Frank Lloyd Wright. It is a Mission/Spanish colonial revival house built in 1923 and is on the national register of historical places (I looked it up). I used to want to be an architect once upon a time. I would love to tour this home! So glad it wasn't hit by the tornado (at least that I could see).

We continued on down 54.

Al's finger got in the way - I took this photo out his window as we were passing through Fort Scott. A pig on the roof!

So here was our first road that we took that we'd never been on before.

Highway 43 (far right circled and highlighted) in Missouri.

We'd been down 71/49, just a few miles to the east.

We figured with that 4 lane road so closeby, this road would be a simple Kansas country road. But it was actually a nicely paved road with wide shoulders and even 65 mph! And not much traffic. Probably most people headed south would take the other highway.

We did have to slow down a couple of times while going through these litty bitty towns (population around 100), but you went through them so fast, it was of no significance. No stopping.

Farm country

We knew we'd end up in Webb City and we debated where in the town we'd come to. I suspected the round-about. Al was thinking it would be more like the road goes by Culver's (our have-to-stop place). It was the round-about.

We caught up to our normal road and continued on to Arkansas.

Construction still going on in Fayetteville.

We got to the kids' house and Eli was ready to battle Darth Papa!

Then it was on to Emeri's swim meet.

Emeri did so well! She has qualified for the finals!

Eli took a little break in the kiddie pool.

Between races...

We spent the night. Emeri had day camp the next day. Eli, his mom and I played Sorry. And Eli went biking with Papa while daddy ran. For lunch we went to Tacos 4 Life.

This puppy was on a shelf by our table. I told Eli that when I was 7, I wanted this puppy for Christmas. But Santa didn't deliver. I was so sad about that.

We said our goodbyes and headed home to Kansas. We stopped in to see Uncle Bill and Aunt Betty (Dad's youngest sister) who live in the boonies.

After a nice visit, we took another new road to get back to the highway. Huckleberry Ridge.

It was very wind-y and curvy. But I'd always wanted to try that route back instead of going through Jane, just to see what it was like. It went through Pineville. A church in Pineville donated some money to our daughter Jill's mission trip to Japan when she was in highschool and I just wanted to see that generous place.

When we got to Kansas, we took 2 more new roads. We took 47 west, just north of Pittsburg, KS to Fredonia (it ends up at the round-about that intersects with 400)

Elk on the roof

Of course we stopped at historical markers along the way! This was very interesting!
The legend of Greenbush

Another pretty church!

If I'd been reading a book, I would have missed the dinosaurs!

We have never been through Altoona before ~ population approximately 400

There are several natural mounds around Altoona and Fredonia. I wonder what caused these?

The last "new" road we tried was unmarked on the map. We thought perhaps there might be a sign pointing to Rosalia or Cassoday, but no sign at all. We passed the paved road on 400 and I told Al I was pretty sure that was where we should turn, so we did a you-y close to the windmills and headed north.

The road curves at first but then it goes north and luckily we were on the right road. And if we hadn't been.....well, it would be an adventure.

Earlier we passed by a bull in a pond that made me laugh so hard but it was an inopportune time to turn around to get the photoshot. It looked just like Ferdinand the bull taking a bath!

I kept looking for more bulls in ponds, but couldn't find another one.

We drove through the Flinthills and at Rosalia, the road turned to a dirt road. But we saw another road sign just a little bit east so we got onto that road, and that one took us to Cassoday. A beautiful drive through the Flinthills!