Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

To prove to the armadillo that it could be done.   Dead armadillos are all over the road. They look like basketballs with tails. I actually saw a road crew guy with a snow shovel pushing one off the road. Vultures don't mess with them....they'd need a can opener.  I think I've only seen one live armadillo in my life. I started seeing them just a few miles west of Camdenton but out here in Kansas they are more plentiful. People do make purses and boots out of armadillo hide but since they can transmit leprosy to humans I don't think that's a good idea. I will try not to hit any as I go forward

I was back on the road fairly early. I thought Wichita was a bigger town but it seems rather small and I didn't see much. This is my second stop here and I'm sure there must be something to see or do but I haven't found it. I'd have to say the same for Tulsa or Amarillo.

Highway 54 just keeps on going. I expected it to be a dual lane divided highway and it is in a few places but it is mostly just a two-lane blacktop with not a great deal of traffic....but there are a few trucks.  There are fewer armadillos, too.

I stopped in Greenburg KS to walk around and get some coffee. You will remember Greenburg as the city that was 95% destroyed by a huge tornado in 2007. It lost 12 people and another 500 moved away shortly afterward. Recovery has been hard but they are coming back as a sustainable "Green" city. Most of the construction in town is LEED certified meaning it conforms to green building standards. They have a lot of room to build...only three buildings survive from before the tornado. There are large areas of vacant space and most of the trees are gone. Just about everything is gone. The card catalog cabinet is the only thing left from the county library. The building and the books were swept away or hauled to the landfill with the debris. Today they have a new hospital, city hall, strip mall, museum, courthouse, and several new housing developments...all built to sustainable standards.  I went through here a couple years ago and it has come a long way since then.

 Greenburg was once known far and wide as the location of the world's largest hand-dug water well. It also is the discovery site of the worlds largest Pallasite meteorite. (Pallasite is a mix of olivine and iron-nickel found in meteorites.) Both of those amazing "World's Largest" sights are visible at the local museum.  The museum also has a lot of information on the tornado which is very interesting.



I had mixed feelings about the well....maybe it was going to be like the world's largest ball of twine.  I figured the well might be pretty small....how big of a well can you dig by hand?  Apparently, a very large well. This well was dug back in the 1880s and is 109 feet deep and about forty feet in diameter....all lined with limestone blocks.

The museum is built over the well so you can't see it unless you pay admission to the museum ($6). I was impressed. I think the entire city could have gone down the well when the tornado hit and they would  all be safe. There is still water in the bottom and it is pretty cool on a hot day...I would think.


I'm having odd weather on this trip. It is cool and rainy with some wind. I expected it to be hot and humid and very sunny. When I pulled into Liberal KS to get gas and lunch it was 64 degrees with a wind-driven mist. It never rains for long but it is heavy rain, sometimes, and the terrain is so flat that you can see it miles away.

I always wondered what Liberal Kansas was like....not much. The main street is Pancake St., which I thought was odd until I remembered that they have the pancake races here on Shrove Tuesday (AKA Mardi Gras). Women run 400 yards down the street flipping pancakes in frying pans.  They do this also in Olney, England on the same day. I can't walk and chew gum so running while flipping pancakes is sort of a challenge. I think this is something that you have to witness to appreciate but you could say the same for Mardi Gras. Probably once would be enough for both.

US-54 crosses into Oklahoma's panhandle just south of Liberal and before you know it, you are in Texas. The highway in Texas is a two lane blacktop with a 75 mph speed limit and almost no traffic except for livestock trucks...traveling at 85 mph. The cattle must be pressed against the back of the truck.

The cattle trucks are in a hurry to get to the two huge feedlots just south of Dalhart. When I got there I wasn't sure what I was seeing because the cattle are so crowded in the pens that you don't immediately recognize them. You can't see an individual cow. The wind was blowing to the west so the first feedlot, on the west side of the highway didn't smell too bad. I was congratulating myself on my good fortune when I came up on the second feedlot on the east side of the road. Yikes...there is nothing quite like the smell of a rain soaked feedlot crammed full of cattle. I was too slow in rolling up my car windows so I got to experience the smell for a few miles. (Next time -- Roll up windows when leaving Dalhart.) This area was all the center of the dust bowl but I couldn't see any indication of it.

It is a tedious drive through Texas and into New Mexico. The most exciting thing is the change to Mountain Time. Eventually the scenery changes and it gets a little more rough and rocky and you can see the Tucumcari mountain off in the distance. 

I got to my motel in Tucumcari and then went out looking for supper. I ate at the Thunderbird restaurant and had a New Mexico meal of Chile Rellenos, rice and beans with green chile sauce....two beers and a big class of water.