Our day began hitting the road right before 8am with clear blue skies and the temps in the 40s. Just as we were ready to leave, Rob noticed that the right headlight had burned out. Having already replaced the left headlight while at Zion NP in Utah, he had purchased a 2nd bulb just in case. So with the spare bulb in hand, he swapped out the burned out bulb for the new in a few minutes and we were on our way. The route today would follow the Arkansas River for over 350 miles, although we caught glimpses of it only a few times at small overpasses.
The tall mountain ranges of yesterday were replaced with vast farmland. Truly in some areas it was as far as we could see into the horizon where it met the blue sky. We noticed that much of the land was only suitable for grazing, as it was very arid, brown and rocky. In this photo, Rob was trying to figure out why the power poles were so low. He theorizes that they might have been originally used for the telegraph back in the day!
Near the eastern edge of Colorado, we noticed a horrific stench. It got worse as we went along, and sure enough we saw our first of many feed lots for the day. Luckily in this picture the smell doesn’t come through.
They were so expansive that we couldn’t just hold our breath as we passed by. In fact, Rob told Michele that he blacked out for a portion of it (kidding).
We passed through many small towns on US 50 today, some of which are incredibly small. Rob knew a town would be approaching by the telltale grain elevators near each one.
What the small towns were missing were lunch options, so we pushed on to Dodge City.
It’s not every day you see a highway named after a famous, historic sheriff.
This is the fun western town of legends, but a bit commercialized. We managed to find a cute local place for lunch in a pretty old home. Although we don’t like coffee (gasp!) they had a good lunch menu.
After leaving Dodge City, Rob commented that the scenery greened up and there were more trees than in western Kansas. The feed lots were thankfully replaced with lush farmland. There was a huge windmill farm along the way.
We also lucked out and spotted another wily coyote, probably in search of a chicken coop.
We did encounter several road construction projects that held us up for about 30 minutes in total. We got to Newton, KS at 5:20pm Central Time. Our change in elevation today from Pueblo CO to Newton KS, was 4,695ft 1,500ft.
Our hotel is a brand new Comfort Suites flanked by a steakhouse where we had brisket and BBQ chicken and an ice cream shop. Tomorrow we will cross through Missouri and meet the St. Louis arch, a first sighting for both of us, so we are looking forward to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment