More Southwest Counties

I left Liberal about 7:30 this morning with a temperature of 71 degrees and the wind out of the south. I rode 500 miles and stopped at 16 counties. The wind switched to the north about 10 AM and it blew hard all day. Most of the day I was either heading east or west, with an occasional trip north, so I always had a crosswind. The only thing to slow the wind out there are the power poles and they were usually on the wrong side of the road. At least I would wear one side of the tires and then change directions to wear the other side. The center probably only wore when I went north.

I went north out of Liberal on 83 and “Lola” was in a bad mood until I got out of town. She must not have had enough rest and I didn’t want to go where she did. The rest of the day we got along okay. I went west on hwy 51 to Hugoton in Stevens County. This was a nice town with a lot of activity. All the places today of course were in an agriculture area. Hugoton has a sign that says it is the “Natural Gas Capital of the World”. They have nice looking schools with gas and oil businesses.

I continued south west of Hugoton on hwy 56 and on the way stopped to take a picture of the small sunflowers. They must have been a variety of sunflower. While I was stopped several pheasants flew across the road and lit in a nearby field. I put on another jacket because it felt like it was getting cooler. This area has many hog confinment feeding houses and I was surprised that they did not smell. There was some on both sides of the road so they must contain the odor. Seaboard owns these and many of the grain elevators in the area. I continued on to Elkhart in Morton County which is in the very south west corner of Kansas. In this area is the Cimarron National Grassland. I had to ask where the courthouse was. They have streets running at angles and it made it confusing to me.

I headed north out of Elkhart on hwy 27 and hit the north wind. The temperature only dropped a few degrees but the wind made up for it. 27 hwy is a very good road and had recently been resurfaced. The next stop was Johnson City in Stanton County. I was having trouble with my eyes burning because of the dust and pollen so when I filled up with gas I rinsed them out and put in eye drops.

From there I went east on hwy 116 to Ulysses in Grant County. There were more piles of corn in about every town I came to. These piles will be really large by the time the harvest is completed because there is still a lot to harvest. A common site in the corn fields were 2 tractor trailer semis, a tractor with a large grain cart and a combine running. Many times the combine would be setting with the bin full.

I headed north on hwy 25 to Lakin in Kearney County.

I then headed back west on 50 hwy to Syracuse in Hamilton County and ate lunch there in a Mexican café. I spoke with a local there that had farmland and he was excited because he had some lease papers he was looking over to lease his land for wind chargers. He has high hopes they will get some there and they have plenty of wind for it. He said besides the lease they would get 4 percent of the revenue generated. If they like the site they will lease it for40 years.
I continued north on hwy 27 to Tribune in Greeley County. There is a lot of ground with native grass growing and they do not pasture or hay so it must be conservation reserve someone is getting paid for to leave idle.

Now I am headed east and leaning north on hwy 96 to Leoti in Wichita County.

And on east on 96 to Scott City in Scott County.

And further east to Dighton in Lane County.

And still further east to Ness City in Ness County. They have a beautiful old building built in the 1890’s and was the Ness County Bank. It is referred to as the “Skyscraper of the Plains.” For more information go to: http://skyways.lib.ks.us/towns/NessCity/ncbb.html

Now I headed north hwy 283 to Wakeeney in Trego County.

I continued on north to Hill City in Graham County.

From there I went west on 24 hwy to Hoxie in Sheridan County.

Then it was south on 23 hwy and no wind. I went south of I-70 11 miles to Gove in Gove County. There is not much in this town. I am glad the officer in the car did not see me up the road when my GPS hit its maximum speed!

I came back north to I-70 and headed west to Oakley in Logan County and I am spending the night here. Once again I am tired after a hard days ride. Maybe the three Jack Daniels I had this evening made a little difference. The people at the motel tell me the courthouse used to be in Russell Springs until in the 1960’s when it was moved to Oakley. She said there was even a murder over moving it to Oakley and at the time Russell Springs had about 2,000 population and now just a few. The old courthouse is still standing and I may ride down there tomorrow as it is not too far out of my way.