Home of Toto

On Monday afternoon Eric stopped by the coffee house to tell me he had a job driving to Kansas to pick up a piece of equipment and could I get off work early and go with him?  Well, not much will keep me, The Road Trip Queen, from going.  My boss was fine with it, so I raced home and packed up some food and all my laundry (I’ll go to great lengths to avoid doing laundry in Watford City).  We got to Rapid City, SD around midnight.

The next day we drove through the Black Hills of South Dakota and on into Nebraska where we followed the Platt River and crossed the Oregon Trail.  We knew we were in Kansas when the road became rollercoaster-like.  (They don’t do road cuts but rather follow the lay of the land).  It’s been said that Kansas is so flat you can watch your dog run away for a week.  Well, maybe in a few parts of Kansas, but having just driven from the NW corner to the SE corner, I can tell you it’s mostly rolling hills, lots of creeks, beautiful hardwood forests, charming old towns and tidy farms.

Oddly, one of my favorite parts of the day was the laundromat in Parsons, KS.  It was old, but clean, spacious and empty.  Normally, I hate going to the laundromat, but this day I rather enjoyed it because now I knew what a truly nasty one was like (Watford City’s).  I got chatting with the attendant—she was born in Wallace, ID, graduated from Kellogg High and has family in Hayden and Coeur d’Alene, ID.  What are the chances?  Anyway, I was happily folding my six loads when Eric pulled up—perfect timing!

Heading back, we saw lots of miniature oil pumps, just five feet tall, pumping away in farmer’s fields.  They’re really cute and apparently have been around since the turn of the century.  Eric loves old machinery and wanted one bad, but we decided to not buy a lawn ornament right now.  J

Into the night we drove on the dark, featureless highway, coming into each little town, shining like a beacon with Christmas decorations and streetlights.  As I studied the map, I noticed a tiny dot near the Nebraska border.  We were going right by that dot, so we got to stand on the geographic center of the United States of America!  Woohoo!!  Not only that, it was on the Winter Solstice!  I think we get bonus points for that. (Scroll down for the exciting photos).

Another Super 8 stay, another continental breakfast, and we set off on the final leg of our trip through an inch of snow as the sun rose behind us.  Going through South Dakota, we saw hundreds of beaver mounds including one with a beaver sitting on top of it, which was a pretty cool sighting on a trip full of wildlife sightings. Besides the beaver, we saw buffalo, antelope, a coyote, deer, lots of hawks , plus skunks and raccoons.  Ok, the buffalo were in a feed lot and those last two were dead, but hey.

I’ll close now as we cross the border into North Dakota.  The sun is low, our shadow is long, and we have five hours left before we are done.  It’s been a good trip—I checked two more states off my list—just six left! 

Merry Christmas, everybody!