We've had a great visit with Ray's relatives and friends in the Halstead/Moundridge area. On Sunday Ray's brother Leslie joined us for a barbecue at Spring Lake. He has ridden over 70,000 miles on his bicycle. Monday was a day for sightseeing. We went to Hutchinson and saw one of the world's largest grain elevators that was over 1/2 mile long. We also went to the Cosmosphere, a space museum which is rated as one of the 8 wonders of Kansas. On Tuesday we headed east from Halstead on Hwy 50 and Raymond accompanied us the first 12 miles.
While we haven't put in many landscape pictures, the landscape has changed from west to east. Western Kansas was dry grazing lands that changed into intensive dry land farming of wheat which was in full harvest. Then the irrigated agriculture started and corn became the dominant crop. Around Halstead there was a mix of dry land wheat with irrigated corn. Halstead to Newton was intensively irrigated corn and soybeans. The wheat seed grown in this area was introduced by Mennonite farmers from the Ukraine. The statue below honors the farmers who (by good luck) brought seed that was perfectly adapted for the Kansas climate.
After Newton, we headed east on a county road and are back into the grasslands with cattle grazing in lush pastures and hay harvest in full swing. We ended today in Cassoday in a lovely city park.
No comments:
Post a Comment