| As we left our overnight campground at Dodge City we still had
over 200 miles of Kansas to go. This was the real Kansas that they talk
about and make jokes about. Coming from England, even with relations
living in East Anglia, this is pretty mind-bending. It really does look
like this. And I have a 360 degree video shot at this point - and its all
like this! Now we can understand why some folk believed the earth was
flat. | 
|
 | Well
actually this is more common. You can see a grain silo at 20 miles. Whilst
the land is flat, it is productive. This is some of the best grain land in
the world. No wonder they call this land the "Breadbasket"
Oh, and it is sloped! Wichita is at 1300ft and Colorado Springs at the
end of the plain is at 6000 ft.
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You may have seen the posters of "Doors of Ireland", or
"Castles of England". Well here is our submission - "Grain
Elevators of Kansas". These were all slightly smaller than the one we found
in Hutchinson and we have cheated a bit because the first 100 miles of South-East
Colorado is no different, so we picked one from there too.
And all the grain elevators are connected by trains so we've included a couple
of those in this Kansas panorama. They predominantly carry grain, coal, and cars
these days.
| We did pause our journey at the town of La Junta (probably
because this is where the Denver railroad branches from the Santa Fe) to
look in the excellent Koshare Indian museum. For years this has been
famous for its dancers who dance the Indian Dances and keep the old
traditions alive. But the dancers are all Scouts, they are very proud of
their Eagle scouts (the highest rank) and they had records of them all.
The replica of an Indian meeting hall had this magnificent log roof and
was truly an amazing structure. | 
|
| Around the walls were hangings depicting scenes from the past. The
museum had hundreds of art works by many different artists, many who had
donated their works to support the troop. |
| I find some of the paintings of the old chiefs in their
ceremonial robes very regal and very wise. I suspect that the only
difference between the leaders of the different peoples was that the white
man had a written history and the natives did not. Oral histories are
equally valid but tend to get lost between cultures since the words don't
mean the same.
It is actually as true of written history. The English and American
views of history, or even just the north and south of the US are very
different.
Nations separated by a common language. |
 |
 | Finally
they had a wonderful collection of native Kachina dolls which had been
acquired but not catalogued. They must have hundreds of stories to tell if
they ever establish what they mean. |
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