Our westward journey began with three days of driving from Myrtle Beach to Asheville to Paducah to Kansas City. Today we visited the Powell Gardens; a wonderful botanical garden on the eastern outskirts of the city….and it was the last day of the annual Orchid Delirium! There were over 2000 unique orchids from over 50 genera across the globe!
Lady Slipper Boutique
There is a beautiful chapel on grounds designed by E. Fay Jones, one of the best known disciples of Frank Lloyd Wright who carried on Wright’s Prairie Style.
Marjorie Powell Allen Chapel
The chapel has 2550 square feet of glass allowing it to
blend with the surrounding prairie!
Monday April 17th
Driving west through Dodge City to Albuquerque, we encountered two things worth mentioning. The first was a wind farm that stretched for over 10 miles with fifteen wind mills on each side of the road the entire way! The second was the largest cattle feed lot we have ever seen. It was over a mile long with overfilled pens stretching a quarter mile deep along the road. The smell was obnoxious. We had to ride with the windows down for miles to get rid of the smell in the truck…..plus suck on a Ludens cough drop to clear our senses!
Wednesday, we drove to White Sands NP, the largest gypsum dune field (275 square miles) in the world. The only way to get a sense of the landscape would be to fly over it! We were both intrigued with how the dunes form! Snow melt contains dissolved gypsum and it is deposited at the base of the mountains. As the water evaporates, gypsum crystals are formed. The winds coming off the mountains, break off flakes which tumble along mile after mile getting smaller and smaller until they are the size of white sand that forms the dunes!
Jeff, we did locate the largest pistachio in the world!!
Thursday, April 20th
Today we drove from Albuquerque to Flagstaff. Upon arriving at the campground, our camper slide would not extend! We called an RV Tech to come out and look at it. He did all of the normal steps to get it moving but could not and indicated the slide mechanism needed to be replaced. There is no repair shop closer than Salt Lake City that can do this type of repair and it takes weeks to get the parts and do the work. After considering all options, we decided turning around and going home was the most reasonable. So, Friday morning we canceled all reservations and plotted the trip home.
In the afternoon, we walked around historic Flagstaff. We planned to go to Sedona while we were here. So since we had some time, we decided to drive to Sedona and check it out before touring the area on Saturday. We drove through Oak Creek Canyon and looked forward to seeing Slide Rock which we slid on in 1972! The road in front of it has changed a lot, but we recognized it! Sedona was nothing like we thought it would be. The four lane highway going through it was packed with cars…and it was like driving in New York City. We didn’t experience any energy vortexes, we were just drained of all our energy! Tomorrow we will not return, we’ll find another destination!
Today we went to Walnut Canyon National Monument! We hiked the Rim Trail and then the Island Trail that goes down down down to the 1000 year old cliff dwellings where the Sinagua (Spanish for without water) lived. Can you imagine living in an area where streams are dry and rain seldom falls for most of the year? They stored water from snow melts and spring rains in large clay pots foe use in the dry season!
Look closely for the dwelling just below the rim.
The Island Trail is beautiful and descends 185 feet using 273 steps!
You hike next to the dwellings!
Sunday April 23rd
Today we drove to Las Vegas NM and spent the night before heading to Goodland KS. Our rerouting provided a special opportunity in Goodland Jeff…to see the world’s largest easel (80’ tall, 32’x24’ representation of one of Van Gogh’s paintings, weighs 45,000 lbs and supports are sunk 35’ into the ground)!
We arrived in Topeka KS last night and today was a layover day! First we went to the Old Prairie Town and Botanical Garden at the Ward-Mead Park which is owned and operated by the Topeka Recreation Department.
We toured the Capital area on foot and ate a barbecue lunch at an open air stage with a gospel band playing. Matt Olmes would love their sound!
Our final stop was the Mulvane Art Museum at Washburn University. One of the exhibits was unique. Rachel Epp Buller had an exhibit of ten photos of trees taken on walks along the Saskatchewan River with a poem over laid on each. The images and text reflected her belief that walking invites you to slow down, ground yourself in the here and now, and listen. She suggests that mindful movement could help, healing of our bodies, minds and relationships.
Washburn University had sculptures all over the campus!
Jeff, world’s largest Wren!
Tomorrow we head home via Granville IL and Huntington WV. We should get home on Saturday (4/29) if nothing else goes wrong on this trip! 😎😎😎😎😎
