Well, I lied. I told you not to expect any updated posts for a few days because of a lack of wifi. Well, that could stop a lesser blogger, but we found a way! Something about tethering the 5G from the mobile phone to create a hotspot network... anyway, I managed to set up a wifi network connected to my phone, so I'll give this a try.

On Saturday, we said a teary goodbye to Colorado and the beauty of the mountains and returned to the flatlands of the midwest. 

Our last look at the mountains. Goodbye, beautiful Colorado. We'll miss you!

On the eastern plains of Colorado, we saw a lot of stockyards, where there were tons of cattle all packed together awaiting slaughter. Colorado is known for its beef, so it is no surprise that we saw as many stockyards as we did. The visual aspects of the stockyards is interesting, but the olfactory aspects leaves a more pungent impression. In other words, when you’re in the right position (downwind), they stink.

We drove into western Kansas, where the topography is that of rolling hills, with a lot of rangeland, farmland, and wheat fields with huge irrigation machinery. It was very hot today, with our truck thermometer reading 109 for most of the day. Of course, we were usually in the air-conditioned truck, but when we got out to get gas or to go into a store, we experienced the heat. It was so very hot; 109 is really hot. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced being in 109 degrees heat before. Did I say that it’s really hot?!!!

We made one stop today. Near Lebanon, Kansas, we stopped at the Geographic Center of the Continental U.S. This site consisted of a marker (a sign) informing Mr. and Mrs. Tourist that this is the geographic center, and there was also a little chapel nearby. The chapel was very small and consisted of four rows of pews, with an aisle down the middle, and enough room for one person per pew on either side of the aisle. There was a pulpit at the front, in case someone got the urge to preach in the geographic center of the continental United States.

After taking a few photos, we continued east in Kansas, checking along the way for any of the towns that might have a Saturday Mass that would be around the time we would be passing through. No such luck. Catholic Churches are few and far between in Kansas, and the ones we located were either not having a Saturday Mass at all, or timing wasn’t working out. We decided to wait until Sunday morning and look for an early morning Mass which we could attend before starting our day.

We stopped to eat in Marysville, Kansas at a place called Bite Me Barbecue. It was good, but not as good as Big Mike’s, our favorite barbecue place in Houma, Louisiana. But then, no barbecue is as good as Big Mike’s.

We found a campground in Seneca, Kansas where we stayed Saturday night. It was a nice, quiet campground located on a pond, very peaceful. There were only about 15 or 20 sites, and we were able to secure one of them. The campground is right along the highway that we are travelling on, so it was very convenient.