We had another day of driving, but we did make a couple of stops along the way. As usual we got rolling at the crack of noon...we are on vacation, after all...and there's no sense in driving in the morning when it's cool. There are hotter days to come.
We called ahead to see if our Timken area farmers were going to be around for a visit. They were. We decided to go to the bin site and leave the camper there, rather than haul it down the gravel road to the farm. We had a great visit with the Wiltse family, got to see the kids...and have they grown! It's been a few years since we have seen them...other than on FaceBook, and we know kids grow, but they are all so tall. Must be that Kansas air.
We went into Great Bend and had "lupper"...what we call it when it's to late for lunch, but early for supper. Can't pass up the Great Wall China Buffet when we are in town. After that, we started back south again.
We finally got into the area where we were starting to see the odd combine doing a test, although with the high heat of the day, we figured we would see a lot more before we hit Cherokee, OK. And we did, along with several crews heading north to their next jobs.
Even though we looked with longing at the combines in the fields making dust, the grain carts and trucks getting dumped, the reality that you just can't have the enjoyable part of the job without all the crap that goes along with it. Cleaning and loading in the heat, the drive along the narrow roads to the next stop, only to unload and start all over again. We miss the people and the combining, but not all the rest of it.
We got to Pratt, KS and were pleasantly surprised that they had finally paved over their rough cobblestone main street...well, most of it at least.
We saw a lot more combines in the field which turned into a lot of fields already combined...but surprisingly, a lot dotting the landscape that were not combined. We had to make a detour near Burlington, which took us over to Alva, OK before we could double back to Cherokee. We know a lot of the back roads to get out to the farm, but even the best of them would have required us to get across the bridge that wasn't there anymore, so...shut up and drive.
We got out to the farm at Cherokee and John was waiting there to help us get parked. Once the camper was flanged in, we all went out to the SmokShak for a late supper and to get caught up. John's wife, Peggy, had passed away at the end of April this year and because we couldn't make the funeral, this trip had been planned to come and spend some time with him.
Tomorrow we see what has changed in the area...
No comments:
Post a Comment