Day 25, Grand Bend, 90 Miles

Grand Bend, which has a WalMart, a, Sonic, a Burger King and a McDonalds, a Perkins, a Pizza Hut, and a bike shop that I never could seem to find, has it all over Dodge City which has two Chinese Restaurants, a Madas Muffler, , and the lamest museum of the trip.

If you want to know what Kansas looks like, read yesterday's post, it hasn't changed. Fortunately, there are some little historical sites that break up the landscape and give me a reason to stop beside, "Good Lord, I need a butt break" Today's petite pleasures was a tiny little church. Senator (and later president) Grover Cleveland gave the town a bell, but the town fathers had nowhere to put it, thought it should go in a church, so built the biggest church they could afford. It was the last thing Grover ever gave to the town. There are some crude parallels to Henry Rutgers' gift of a bell and $5,000 to what was then Queens College. The bell was hung in Old Queens, the college renamed "Rutgers" and that was the last thing Henry ever gave Rutgers (the college, not himself.) This is a somewhat sensitive topic with those who keep the official history of the University. My version is a better story than their version.

There was also in interesting museum of life on the Kansas prairie at the half way point between San Francisco and New York City. Unfortunately, we did not have the good sense to finish in NYC, so our half way point will come tomorrow. The museum is built around an actual sod house. They put a cement floor under it, and a new roof on it, but other than that, it's all original sod.

I haven't mentioned it before, but one of the intellectually interesting aspects of the trip is all the stuff I learned in grades 3-6 that I thought were totally useless, but now are not. For example, why the vegetation and climates on two sides of the mountain are completely different; how rivers change their course and why they are so curvey; the difference between immigration and emmigration; why some flowers always face the sun (they are heliotrophic), why smart farmers rotate their crops between corn and soy; and why anyone would ever build their house out of sod.

Today's mini-contest: What is the strange little building in the picture? It is made out of tin or sheet metal, and was about 15 ft back from the rail road track. You'll get some sort of prize if you're right, and I'll make you famous by posting the answer on the Blog.

Technical Note: Keep those comments coming. I haven't figured out how to respond by e-mail, but try to add a comment about the comments in the comment using the comment command in the comment section. (With apologies to Expos 101)