The last bit of Kansas (09-20-13)

Before we left Kansas, we had one more thing to see. A mine. Another mine?  Haven’t we seen every type of mine there is?  I thought so,  but I guess I was wrong, because on our last day in Kansas we visited an underground salt mine in Hutchinson, Kansas.  The mine opened in 1923 and is still running today.

Our tour started “topsides” where we all donned hard hats and re-breathers.  They were happy to tell us that in the history of the mine, no one has had to use the re-breather.

To get down to the mine, we all piled in an elevator and rode down the mine shaft.  It was extremely dark.  And quiet.




Then I heard someone softly say “ I think it’s a crab”.  That was when we realized that my clearance rack t-shirt from PEI actually glows in the dark.  Ha!  We all got a laugh out of that once I pointed out that it’s actually a lobster.










  Once at the bottom, most of the exhibits were self guided.  That’s great because Paul is interested in completely different things from me.

While he was checking out the equipment they used, I was looking at trash. They have a saying- “What Goes in the Mine, Stays in the Mine”, including all the trash- which they now call “artifacts”. The salt preserves even the trash for many decades!

Interesting that NO food or drink are allowed on the tour- not even water, because the floor is made of saltcrete. Instead of using sand to make concrete, they use salt, and make saltcrete, so yeah, if you spilled your water, the floor would dissolve.

One of the displays that interested me the most was about salt and iodine. Before the early 1900s, IDD, (Iodine Deficiency Disorder) was the leading preventable cause of mental retardation. Scientists were looking for a universal vessel for getting iodine into the world’s population, and that’s where salt comes in. 

We all need salt.  Actually, we need about 1/2 teaspoon of salt a day. In 1923, a scientist at University of Michigan figured out the chemical process to put iodine into salt and within a year, iodized salt was the norm.  I’m probably one of the few people who buys noniodized salt.  That’s because iodine can cause thyroid imbalances and I have had Graves Disease, a thyroid disease.  I’ve been in remission but my doctor has advised me NOT to have iodine because of that.  

If you’ve ever seen the show Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe actually did a show down here in the mine.  The car that they drove him around in is still here.










There were two “rides” that took us deeper into the mining operation. One was a train ride and the other was a glorified golf cart train that was called the Dark ride.  The only light for most of the trip was the light from the tour guide’s helmet ( and of course, Paul’s flashlight!). We learned the history of the mine, and she told us a few stories- it was actually pretty entertaining.

One of the characteristics of salt is as a preservative, of course, and parts of the mine are now used for storage. At a constant 68 degrees and low humidity, the mine is perfect for storing fragile and/or important items. Over 8 million boxes of items are stored here.  Hollywood keeps prints and film here, including the original of The Wizard of Oz.

Data is also stored here. Several states, and some countries, keep back up data here.  This computer was used for data storage until the 1960s.  It looks impressive and huge, and it stored less data than an ipod nano. My, how times have changed.







Once we were back above ground, our plan was to drive to Liberal, Kansas, park the trailer for the night, and drive in to look around the famous town, but we were too tired.  Instead,  we decided to do a ‘drive-by’ on our way out of town in the morning. A famous person is from Liberal Kansas- her name is Dorothy Gale.  



She and her dog Toto were picked up by a tornado years ago.  They had quite an adventure before making it back to Kansas.

A Busy Day in Kansas (09-19-13)

   We woke up in the morning, all set to head out and move towards Oklahoma, when I said to Paul “Ya know, the New Horizons factory is pretty close by” and he replied “Yeah, and the Eisenhower Presidential Library is, too”.

So just like that we decided to stay another day and do more exploring.  It means knocking off one of our stops on the way to El Paso, so I guess we’ll see Comanche National Grassland some other time.

  For anyone not familiar with 5h wheels, New Horizons produces one of the best quality 5th wheels on the market- also one of the most expensive ones.  New Horizons is known for  highly customizing their 5th wheels to whatever the customer wants.  There were several reasons why we didn’t look at them when we ordered our Mobile Suites, and that’s one of the reasons.  I honestly didn’t want to think that hard figuring out what we wanted. 

Their location was another reason we didn’t consider them.  We wouldn’t have ordered without seeing them being built, and the factory is way over here in Kansas.  The third reason we passed them over is the price.  We couldn’t justify spending $150,000 on a rig. All that being said, we were still curious about them, since we’d never been in one, and so we drove over to take the factory tour.





Our guide was Drew, the owner’s son, and he spent most of the morning showing us around the place.  New Horizons is so customized, they only build one a week.  So, after a great tour, did we see anything that made us want to run out and buy a New Horizons? Nope! We’re still happy with our DRV product, and after all, it was semi-custom built for us, and in fact there wasn’t anything that we wanted that DRV couldn’t do for us. 


“If we don’t defend ourselves on the Rhine, we’ll have to defend ourselves in New York” –Dwight D. Eisenhower

After grabbing a quick lunch, we went to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Museum and Library.  I must be easily annoyed because within a few minutes, after seeing rows and rows of huge plaques that were loaded with verbiage, I was complaining that if I had wanted to read a book, I would have saved my money and gotten one from the library.

Dwight Eisenhower’s life can essentially be divided into three parts- his childhood, his military career, and his presidency. 

  His childhood was spent in a small home with his parents and 5 brothers, all of whom were particularly successful. In fact, when asked, soon after D-Day, if she was proud of her son, Dwight’s mother replied “ Of course.  Which one?”

He never forgot the small town of Abilene Kansas, where he grew up, claiming that the thing he was most proud of in his life, was his upbringing in his hometown in Kansas.

He attended West Point Academy and graduated with a group of men who would become extremely important and influential. In fact, his graduating class had more Generals than any other graduating class in West Point history.  Out of 164 cadets, 64 eventually became Generals.  Of course, Eisenhower was among those 64.  During World War II he was promoted to Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, overseeing not just the United States war effort, but all the Allied Forces.  He played a major role in the successful invasion of France and Germany.

Convinced to run for the presidency, Dwight easily won the election in 1952, and again in 1956. His terms in office took place during a relatively calm time in our history, although the cold war was “heating up.”

Once we’d had our fill of Dwight, we headed back home, but we’d heard about Mushroom Rock State Park, and since it was on the way, we decided to stop and see it. Yup, it looks like a mushroom.

Working Our Way towards El Paso (09-18-13)

Our original intent was to make our way to Colorado and do some hiking in the Denver area, but mother nature changed our plans.  With all the flooding going on up there, the national park is closed, the trails would be impassable, and the last thing they need is people coming into the area. So, we went to plan B, and will head to El Paso to see Paul’s mom.  Along the way we are stopping to do some hiking and exploring.


  Our first stop was near Marquette Kansas.  We stayed at another Corp of Engineers Park, this time on Kanopolis Lake.  The trail we hiked was Horsethief Canyon Trail.

We didn’t hike all of it, partly because the signage was so lacking that we weren’t sure which way to go.  The other issue was that it’s in a canyon and the forecast called for rain in the afternoon.  3 miles later, we were back at the truck, and headed into town to get some diesel fuel.

We drove into the small town of Lindsborg.  Lindsborg is a Swedish settlement, which we figured out pretty quickly by reading the “Valkommen” signs.  One of the first things we noticed in the historic and cute downtown was the horses standing on many of the street corners.  We learned that they are called Dala horses and historically they are carved by the Swedes during the cold winter months and then painted to show them off.  If you search the internet for “Dala horse” the first thing that pops up is the store here in Lindsborg that sells them.


I’m not sure if that means that they are the leading authority on the horses, or that no one else really cares about them!

What a difference a day makes

Our last day in the Denver area was spent hiking.  We hiked a looped that took us past several lakes.  Two of them were absolutely beautiful.  In Rocky Mtn National Park, you're not really allowed to swim in the lakes and rivers- the water is too cold (I can vouch for that) and too swift.  It was pretty warm though, so I did poke my feet in the water of Mills Lake, which is where we stopped to have lunch.  While there we watched an elk approach the lake on the other side, and take her calf  for  a swim.  It was incredible to watch! 
   After lunch, we continued on our way, coming to Haiyaha Lake, which is one of the most beautiful lakes I have ever seen.  We had to climb over boulders to get to really see it, and we didn't take the time to go around the other side so we could get close to the water. Thats ok though, we sat on the boulders and just enjoyed.
The total hike was about 7.5 miles, but it started at 9500 ft and went up over 10,000 ft.  I had adjusted pretty well to the altitude so although I was breathing heavy, at least I could do the hike.
After taking the shuttle back to our truck we headed into Estes Park for a well deserved ice cream. We wandered the River walk for a bit before heading home to a very light dinner.

Friday brought some changes and was not so fun.  Three weeks ago we had the Everest axles aligned and had to replace one of the tires- Friday we went to another alignment shop because Paul noticed that it seemed out of alignment again and he wanted to make sure it was ok.  We spent most of the day there, trying to figure out the best way to fix the trailer, since according to this place, not only is it out of alignment again already, the axles aren't big enough for the trailer.  We called the  manufacturer, and they will take a look at it when we bring it in this August.  A very frustrating and long day.  The only good part was that they had private waiting rooms, so the cat could have his own room to wander around in, complete with reclining chair. This all delayed our leaving, and we ended up making it as far as Seibert, CO, headed towards Branson MO. 
      Today was all driving, and another frustrating day. We left this morning and had a lot of miles to go.  In the early afternoon we heard a huge "pop", which turned out to be one of our trailer tires bursting.  Paul handled it all calmly- the truck didn't even lurch, so we were pretty impressed with that. The other tires held, so that was great, but we had to limp a half mile down the highway because there was very little shoulder and it was too dangerous to try and change the tire there.  We got it to a safer place and Paul braved the 104 degree heat to put on the spare and we were on our way.  We lost the fender to the trailer as well, so we'll have to see about getting a new one.
Tonight we are in Topeka Kansas, debating buying a second A/C unit for the trailer. We've never felt the need for it until now, but at 8 pm it was still 97 outside and when we arrived, the inside temperature of the trailer was 102.  It's taken hours to get it to a reasonable temperature.  Of course, we spent one of those hours in the campground pool, relaxing, so it hasn't been all bad.