Adventure with deck of cards, part 2

So, continuing on our adventure....

(see prior post)

 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!

An adventure using a deck of cards and a truck!

Some time ago, I thought up a game that maybe, just might be, sort of fun.  

It involves a deck of cards and a truck with 4 wheel drive.

We determined which suit would be which direction.
The hearts would be south.
Spades - north.
Diamonds - east
and Clubs (we call them puppy feet) would be west.
The object of the game is to have a starting point, draw a card and you go the number of miles by the number on the card and go the direction determined by the suit.

Al shuffled the cards.

We got all packed up.  I took a sweater incase it got chilly in the car.  We took snacks and lunch because we had no idea where we would end up.  A book incase we had car trouble and we had to sit awhile.  And of course my camera.

We took the GPS because we knew we might be out of cell tower reach 

and the phone map wouldn't work.

\

Al checked tires (and the spare) and filled up with gas.

Off we go!

 Our first card took us north into North Newton.

We had decided that J, Q, K would mean that we could decide how many miles.

We chose to go just out of town going west.

 The next card took us south 1 mile.

East

Al:  I hope we don't just drive around town all afternoon!

And south again

We were 1 mile away from our house (as the crow flies)

but we'd gone 14 miles already!

 A mile south of 96, we drew a spade which meant going north on the road we had just come south on!

After that, we made the rule that we couldn't just turn around 

in the same direction you just came from.   

But if you would want to do it, you sure could.  

We just decided we didn't want to. 

Hi Jen!  Again!

We got to 48th street and Spencer then got a turn east 9 miles.

Someone got a ride with us!

It was such a pleasant day!

This is August in Kansas.  

It could have been 110 degrees! 

We even rolled down windows!

Unless we met another vehicle!

We'd just had 3 inches of rain  so there were a few mud puddles

We saw a deer and her fawn!  The mommy ran into the field but the fawn stayed ahead of us for quite a while.  She had a very long tail we thought.

I thought it was a hawk until I put the digital card in my computer and realized it was an owl!

 Some roads were paths for tractors.

 

turkey vulture 

 We kept picking spades so we kept going east

 We saw so many scissor-tails!

barn swallows 

 more going east!

Don't know the story of this little "church" building in front of the house.
It was just down the road was the Burns church where our pastor's father pastored for so many years.

He has also translated the whole New Testament into Low German and translated the Back to the Bible broadcast into Low German also.  And he is in his 90's!  God has really used this man!!

The road ended.  No more east.  

We turned south and went into Burns for a restroom break.

Since there was no more east, we went north on a road called Zebulon.
That's the 6th son of Jacob and Leah in the Bible!

 We had to go north on Highway 77 just a tad to get back on an east road.

 When there was a dead end or not a road going the direction that our card said we should go, we just picked another card.

 It wasn't flooded.

But we weren't sure where we were going.
More to come on another post.