We started the day thinking the drive would be a tough one. After all, we were deep in the boonies of Oklahoma and had a long drive to Dodge City Kansas in 95 degree heat. We saw more oil pump jacks than we knew existed. It turned out to be enjoyable anyway. We found a good breakfast at Mel's Diner in Fairview. A town of just over 2,000 with big wide streets and the smallest movie theater we've ever seen. We stopped and talked about guns for a while at the local gun shop. I suspect a high percentage of the people here carry firearms. There are advertisements for concealed carry classes, and the lack of crime supports my theory. As a retired cop I can say with some authority, "when seconds count, the police are only minutes away". A population that can defend itself, is well defended. After some enjoyable conversation with the shop owner, himself an expert marksman and local peace officer, we drove into the Gloss Mountains.
These mountains were a very unexpected pleasure. They are known as Red Messas, the Glass Mountains, or more often the Gloss Mountains, they look like they just shouldn't be there. The land is flat to gently rolling for hundreds of miles, then suddenly there is a wall of red, lifted out of the landscape like a big red flat top hair-do. The best explanation I found for the geology is at http://www.okmajordev.org/gloss%20mountain%20state%20park.htm . The messas have large seams of gypsum and are laced with with a crystal called selenite. The cartographer who named the messas apparently misunderstood the thick accent of one of the surveyors who exclaimed "It sure looks like Glaws". I could forgive anyone for making gloss or glass out of that.We have all seen grain elevators and silos before but never like this. The sheer volume of wheat, 
corn, and whatever else they put in these things is staggering. I think you could fill an entire train with some of the larger ones. Now I understand why this is the breadbasket of the country.
corn, and whatever else they put in these things is staggering. I think you could fill an entire train with some of the larger ones. Now I understand why this is the breadbasket of the country.Cattle likewise, is produced on a massive scale. We approached a huge dark section of land and from several miles away could not figure out what had darkened the land in this way. When we got closer, we could see that is was a feed lot, where cattle by the thousands were fed, sorted, auctioned and transported to the rendering plants. Those plants were also massive, spawning additional whole industries to dispose of what is not beef at the end of the process. This economy of scale is why less than 3% of our population can feed us all.
We also saw more oil pump jack than we knew existed. Wikipedia explains how they work better than I can. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpjack if you like mechanics and hydraulics.This part of the country is known for its windy conditions and we were treated to another unusual sight soon after entering Kansas; a wind farm. 
When you approach these giants, they, like mountains, appear much closer that they really are. In this collection, I guess there were about 200 of these machines. Each one probably costs a million or two and each machine looked like it was about 400 feet tall with blades of maybe 200 feet long. That is a big machine! I hear they can put out between 1 and 3 megawatts each! They are expensive but environmentally friendly. I don't know what a kilowatt hour costs from a wind farm but I'll bet it's high. Green or not, Ted Kennedy did not want them in his back yard. He said it would kill birds. I guess the life of a Kansas bird is worth less than a bird neighboring the Kennedy compound.
When you approach these giants, they, like mountains, appear much closer that they really are. In this collection, I guess there were about 200 of these machines. Each one probably costs a million or two and each machine looked like it was about 400 feet tall with blades of maybe 200 feet long. That is a big machine! I hear they can put out between 1 and 3 megawatts each! They are expensive but environmentally friendly. I don't know what a kilowatt hour costs from a wind farm but I'll bet it's high. Green or not, Ted Kennedy did not want them in his back yard. He said it would kill birds. I guess the life of a Kansas bird is worth less than a bird neighboring the Kennedy compound.
We arrived at Dodge City Kansas in time to shop, rest, and see the Boot Hill Museum and Front Street. For a very reasonable $25 they fed us both a very tasty and large dinner, then down past the replica town storefronts where a group of costumed gunslingers re-enacted a typical wild west bar fight and shootout. It seemed very realistic and reminded me of some of my days on the police department. See gunfighters and former gunfighters below:
Tomorrow we will try to get some miles done before it gets too hot. I hear we are facing another 100 plus day. By afternoon we should be at cooler Colorado altitudes... more then.
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