A Little Bitty Adventure

Up and down hills

Extreme adventure, it's not. In many ways, a tiny adventure but the kind that brightens many of my days. As I went to Casey's this morning to celebrate National Donut Day, I decided to look for "the road less traveled" way home.

I spent the rest of the morning driving country roads in eastern Kansas, south of the Kansas City area. To those that say that Kansas is just flat land, let me assure you it isn't. I was up and down hills on gravel roads I'd never travelled before.

Adventure is often what we make of it. I went looking for photo ops - of which there were plenty - but I also found story ideas and a sense of what pioneer life must have been like.

I drove for almost an hour before I say another vehicle and it was a grader working on the road. The houses here and there are easily travelled between today, but I thought of what it would have been like to have to hitch up the horses and take a buggy ride to see your neighbor or go into town.

Even dandelions have beauty

I reveled in spring - the flowers, the green grass and all the trees. As summer temperatures approach, all the newness will change and nature will show its annual aging.

An abandoned home

I passed an abandoned property and wondered when it had been someone's home. I tried to imagine living in the country years ago. Life's fortunes depended on the weather and the year's crops. Both of my parents grew up on eastern Kansas farms and I remember them talking about good years and bad years.



I found several old barns including one with a hand-painted quilt pattern on it.





The last "new" road for me took me across a low "flood area" crossing. Today I could drive across as water was barely covering it, but I imagined yesterday after the rains, it would have been impassable.

Farther down the road, I crossed a simple wooden bridge. The creek ran full from recent rains. Country life is so dependent on rain - when it comes, how often and how much at a time.


 The one thing I didn't see was animal life. Usually the countryside is dotted with horses, cows, goats or sheep. Occasionally I see a few llamas, but today nothing but one lone squirrel. Most of the land was crop land and maybe the animals were in pastures far off the road. It wasn't the heat since it was a perfect 74 degrees.

In any case, I had a good morning and came home ready to work.