Paradise found but where's Waldo?

 On the last stretch home, we turned south on 183 at Ansley, Nebraska.

This barbed wire buffalo contains 2 miles of barbed wire and weighs about a ton.  It was made out of wire from fences erected around the area between 1886 and 1970.

Here is a corn cob made from barbed wire.  Did you know there is a barbed wire museum in La Crosse, Kansas?  We stopped there once.  It is kind of interesting!

Beauty of the plains

As we passed the Nebraska Prairie Museum at Holdredge, we noticed a wedding going on!  Well, probably had just finished and they were taking pictures.

At Plainville we turned east on Highway 18.

Farmland

We were surprised that the wheat harvest was not all completed just yet.

Look at this idea for a Kansas sunflower snack!

The sunflower is our state flower.

We found Paradise!

Where's Waldo?

Wilson Lake

See the rock posts?  This is post rock country.

Many fences made with it.

Kansas is NOT all flat!

It is just beautiful!

An elephant cloud!

While we had been gone, a couple from out of state had been staying at our home.  They were in the process of adopting a baby from Kansas and as they needed to be here for almost 2 weeks to complete paperwork, friends of theirs had asked if we would be open to having them stay in our home.  OF COURSE!  We use our home often for people to stay and we were especially delighted to meet the new little one!

A gorgeous Kansas sunrise greeted us the next morning.

Scenic Highway 2, Western Nebraska

After our stop in Ellsworth at the 1898 built company store, we went east on Highway 2.

The unincorporated town of Ashby.

The town (or village) of Hyannis, population 165 in 2020.  

It became a town in 1888, named after a town in Massachusetts.

Chuck Hayword, a motion picture stuntman who doubled for many western and action stars, is from this little town.

At Broken Bow, we found a DQ and stopped.  We had our picnic lunch with us and ate it outside and then of course, had to get a dip cone too!

At Whitman, we took a little stop to check out a little cemetary behind this church.

We drove up a little hill.

From the top of the hill, looking down over the town.

These people were Irish, Scot and German immigrants.

Life was hard back in the prairie days.  Loss of many little ones.  If we wouldn't keep the eternal perspective of our lives, we would despair.

Someone made a new headstone for these little babies.  

“Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should.”  Psalm 90:12

We read a sign that there was a church who adopted this part of the highway for litter cleanup.  There was NO litter.  It was very clean!  Either good job, church for your work, or good job travellers for not throwing trash out your windows!

We passed the little town of Thedford and was surprised to see 2 electric charging stations right on Main Street.  Here is an old county jail on Main Street.

We took Highway 2 to Ansley and then turned south.  To be continued next post.