November 16: Independence, Missouri, to Great Bend, Kansas

It took a while this morning to get around Kansas City. I didn't want to take a major road right into the city during morning rush hour. So I looped around to the south and then westward and then back northward. That took almost an hour.

East of Wamego, Kansas, on state route 24 I spotted a sign stating that there was a historical marker four miles off the road related to the Oregon Trail. I drove off in search of the marker and found myself going down some dirt roads, eventually leading to another dirt road named "Oregon Trail Road." In fact this dirt road was the Oregon Trail in this area.

The marker was at the Red Vermillion River and related Louis Vieux who had constructed a toll bridge across this river here. He charged $1 for each group crossing his bridge and would sometimes make as much as $300 per day. Vieux was part French, part Potawatomie Indian. He is buried in the graveyard at this site. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were a national project to locate, map, and again make public a walkway along this old Oregon Trail all the way from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon. I am sure it could be a tourist draw.   

I stopped briefly in Manhattan, Kansas, the home of Kansas State University. After leaving Manhattan, I was trying to follow Kansas Route 18. All of a sudden I found myself 3rd in line at a military checkpoint - the entry to Fort Riley, a big army base. The MP at the gate didn't know where Route 18 was but he told me that if I kept on the main street of the base, I would finally come out the other side near Junction City. I did. In Junction City I drove past the Buffalo Soldier Memorial, put on the brakes, and returned to take a few photos.  Bob Marley's wonderful song memorializes them also :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5FCdx7Dn0o

The black Buffalo Soldiers were stationed at Fort Riley as well as Fort Leavenworth and elsewhere in Kansas to fight the Comanches and other Indian tribes beginning in 1866.

I drove back roads into Abilene, Kansas, the boyhood home of Dwight Eisenhower. There is a museum and library and the boyhood home was preserved after his mother died. All the neighboring houses have been torn down over the years and been replaced by gardens, memorials, and even a chapel. But all the furnishings in the house are the originals. The museum is fine but 3 times as much space is devoted to his leadership in World War II as is devoted to his 8 years as President. I found it interesting that the house is only 100 yards from the railroad line through town and only three blocks from the center of Abilene. It was never a farmhouse. Somehow I had imagined him growing up as a Kansas farm boy. 

From Abilene I headed southwest and ended the day in Great Bend. Along the way I passed a wind farm with huge windmills rotating high above grazing fields. This appears to be perfect country for windfarms.