| The day starts to go a little haywire from this point. This is just an old barn. Nothing particularly interesting. |
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| As I was passing the town of Alexander,
Kansas I spotted what looked like an old abandoned building. I
pulled off of the highway for a closer look. It was a school
building. The date over the door said 1910. Alexander is a tiny town of less than a hundred people, I didn't see much else but a few homes and the offices of a wind farm. |
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| The Ness County Bank Building became known as the "Skyscraper of the Plains". You would have to feel secure with your money in such a strong looking building. |
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| So, the next stop was going to be
Monument Rocks, which is a National Natural Landmark. I assumed it
would be a place where there was information, paved roads, etc. I
was mistaken. See this road? It is located in Gove County. I think gove must be an old Indian word for mud, because that is what it was completely made of. |
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| In fact, Google Maps wanted to take me on a "road" that was even muddier than this one. When I turned onto it, I did nothing but skid. I could barely control my car, turning my steering wheel sharply from one direction to the other just to keep from spinning and sliding off the road. I managed to turn onto a small side road to turn around and get back on the highway. There was no way I was going to be able to drive several miles on slick mud. |
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| I did eventually find a road that was mostly passable. My car was splattered in mud and the wheel wells were caked. I stopped at one of those do-it-yourself car washes later that day to get most of it out, splashing mud on myself in the process. |
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| All that to get here. There was absolutely nothing out there but the formations themselves and a sign asking people not to climb on them. |
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| It is on privately-owned land. The chalk formations were carved by erosion from what was once a vast inland sea eighty million years ago. |
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| I was the only one there when I was on site, although as I was leaving I saw a car approaching. |
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| There were lots of birds roosting on the side of the wall. |
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| Pretty flowers on prairie scrub. |
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| This calf was probably wondering why I was so crazy to brave the mud roads. |
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| Never was I happier to see an interstate highway. There was a sign that called this stretch of I-70 as the first section completed as part of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. The Act was signed by President Eisenhower. More about him later. |
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| I had planned to visit Fort Hays as
well but discovered that it was closed. So I just drove around the
city of Hays. Built as a dry goods store in 1874, this stone building was the home of the government land office from 1875 to possibly as late as 1879. Thousands of pioneers filed homestead and timber claims at this office. |
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| More Old Western architecture. I cannot resist. |
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| This is not great architecture. It is the Baymont by Wyndham in Salina, Kansas. |
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| Questionable interior decorative scheme as well. It was adequate. I didn't know until I went to get something for dinner that just behind the property was a rather dodgy-looking mobile home neighborhood. |
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| There are probably fancier places to eat in Salina, but the Cozy Inn is famous. It has been there since 1922, serving freshly-prepared sliders to hungry patrons. |
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| It is seriously no bigger than this. I don't recall how many stools there were at the small counter, but no more than a half-dozen if that many. I got my order to go. I am not much of a slider guy, but they were quite delicious. |
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