Kansas.

Before we left, lots of people had a LOT of suggestions about where to go. We only had one item of interest in North Dakota and NO suggestions for Kansas or Oklahoma.

We expected Kansas to be flat. Just flat. Our goal would be to get to the western border. The last time Beth and I crossed Kansas it was on route 80. This time we took route 70. We have a new appreciation of Kansas. It was lovely. The eastern half had beautiful rolling hills and a lot of interesting farms, livestock, and equipment. Now remember, we are traveling in June and everything is VERY green and August might be dry and oppressive, but June is a terrific time to see it. If you were a teenager it would be brutal. Miles between houses. Nothing to do but get in trouble. But as an adult that doesn't have to slow down the car I highly recommend it. Cattle everywhere and it's the season for a lot of little calves. Lots of em. They are soooo cute. All head, no body - no hamburger yet.

The coolest tractors. I couldn't get pictures because they move too fast. They is this version that is way up on posts that is used to spray the fields, it has a long nose and looks like a land speeder in Star-Wars. They scream around really fast. A lot of the road construction equipment like graders and rollers are pulled by the big eight wheel John Deere tractors because that is what everyone is used to working with.

Halfway through the state things smooth out and become flat. There is a lot of trucking here. With the trucks come businesses that try to get money from the truckers that otherwise would have no reason to stop. There are thousands of "Adult Stores - warehouses - giant - xxx - live - couples - etc etc" (sex shops, and of course a few signs for "injury lawyers", I am sure that it is not a big stretch from being the manager of a cinder-block store that sells toys and supplies to truck drivers that travel alone to expand your business to be an injury-lawyer).

We thought of Kansas as kind of wholesome but there are at least forty "intimate fantasy" stores for every one in New York City. In between the sex billboards are the usual save your soul billboards but they aren't maintained and are pretty run down.

Ok, I know I haven't painted a pretty picture of Kansas, but that is only because I veered off talking about the billboards. Looking PAST the billboards was great. The western half of Kansas did get flatter and flatter, but the cattle still seemed to be enjoying themselves. We did too.