High plains driver

Driving through the high plains of Kansas is a long and windy process.  Hour after hour of rolling amber fields, broken only by the occasional winter tumbleweed as it skitters across the road.

Normally I like to listen to talk radio when I drive like this, but in the outback of Kansas that is like eating a bad ice cream sundae, syrupy with a few scattered nuts.  Classical music makes me sleepy after a while, so I ended up listening to a Mexican station.  I only understood the occasional word, but the music was peppy and it had the added advantage of not making me angry. 

Signs become incredibly interesting when going through an area like this.  There were the signs posted along fence posts, like the old Burma Shave signs, only these were for churches.  I read them as I tooled along, St. Andrew's Catholic, First Presbyterian, Drunkard Baptists -- wait!  I had to read that one again. 

Or the hand painted red signs advertising the world's largest prairie dog over and over as I drew closer.  The prospect of a fifty pound prairie dog is daunting, but I wondered more about the promise of petting baby pigs.   Always having a supply of baby pigs must require some work.  In the end I did not go see the prairie dog, pigs, rattlesnakes or any of the other assorted animals they offered.

I did eat in a 1950's shiny metal diner, planted at the edge of a small town and run by one woman who did everything but cook and one cook who did that.  It was amazingly good pie and celebrated the end of my prairie journey.