Day 7 - Dodge City to Kansas City, Mo.

Continuing on eastward across Kansas today; not sure what we might find. On the way out of Dodge, we saw the two major beef processing plants and learned that between the two of them, they process 10,000 head PER DAY! Then, a bit further east we drove for 25 miles through the largest wind turbine farm we've ever seen. There had to be more than 1000 of them!

We came across the Fort Larned National Historical Park, which turned out to be a treat! Passing through the butterfly garden at the entrance, you come upon the original fort from the 1860s. Everything is original! There was a major encampment here up until the early 1870s. Its purpose was to guard the Santa Fe Trail, which passed through here, and to be the Indian "Agency" for the Dept of Indian Affairs. Once the railroad came through, the fort was no longer necessary since traffic on the Trail dried up.

We went through the little burg of Garfield (as in President Garfield's hometown) and visited the Garfield Memorial Wayside Chapel.

We continued north from there and connected to I-70 for a straight shot into Kansas City. We did stop at Abilene for a few minutes to checkout the Eisenhower homestead and Presidential Museum.

This northeast part of Kansas is much greener than we had seen and it gets a bit hilly. In fact, the area around Abilene is called "Flint Hills". We also began to see fields of corn, which we had not seen before.

Our i-phone map lady did a great job in getting us through KC and to our hotel, which is right across the street from Kaufman stadium. Excellent beer and burgers in the sports bar before calling it a day!

Tomorrow church and baseball!

 

Feed lot

Downtown K.C.