Today felt very much like a Kansas road trip as we made our way from Wichita to Liberal. We started out the day with meeting Lisa’s friend, Martie, in Newton for breakfast at Curtis C’s Diner. After a good traditional cafe breakfast we hit the road. The winds were still strong today, but not nearly as bad as yesterday. We were mostly on two-lane roads and the worst part was passing by all the large trucks in the oncoming lane. Usain’s cross wind assist did a good job of keeping us from being sucked into them and we made it to our destination safely.

Road Side Sites

Here are some of the road side sites taken from the van’s windows as we made our way across the great plains of Kansas.

The Big Well

My family took our longest road trip to see Carlsbad Caverns when I was six or seven years old. Along the way we stopped in Greensburg, Kansas to see the Big Well, the largest hand dug well in the world. It must have made an impression on me at the time since I remember it pretty well (no pun intended) to this day.

When we arrived it was nothing like I had remembered. Most things change after 50+ years, but in this case, change was forced upon the Big Well. An EF5 tornado leveled the town of Greensburg in 2007, and that included the original Big Well gift shop/museum and well covering. A beautiful brand new six-million dollar museum now stands in it place allowing for a much better view of the well and a very interesting museum/memorial to both the well and the tornado.

As seen in the pre-tornado picture above, the well was accessible from outside of the gift shop. We didn’t go down into the well as a kid — likely because there was a entry fee and my parents didn’t spring for it — but we could look down into it through the large windows covering it. I recall seeing the staircases going back and forth down into the dim emptiness.

It’s a very different experience today. A single entry fee gets you into the museum and access to the well via a staircase that winds around the stone walls. The staircase goes up as well as down to serve as a lookout around the town. Markers point out places of interest, which notably list all post-2007 dates because the tornado destroyed all but 3 buildings in the entire area.

Dalton Gang Hideout

Another family memory from my past was attending my brother Brian’s wedding in Meade, Kansas. His wonderful wife, Marilyn, grew up in Meade and the two of them were married in 1981 after meeting at Kansas State.

Since Lisa and I needed a break, we stopped in Meade at the infamous Dalton Gang Hideout. The “hideout” consists of a tiny house where the Dalton brothers’ sister lived. A crude 95-foot tunnel leading from the house to the barn on the lot was discovered after the place was sold. The house has since been renovated and the tunnel reconstructed so that it can be traversed while walking. Originally one could only crawl through it. It was a nice break from driving and a quick stop to see a part of criminal history.

Beautiful Kansas Sunset

We ended up our day in Liberal, Kansas, opting to stay at the Mid-America Air Museum, a Harvest Host that we’ve stayed at before. Since we had already been through the museum (and it was the end of the day) we patronized our host by buying a T-shirt and making a small donation to the museum. We were rewarded with a gorgeous Kansas sunset overlooking the airport’s runway.