Because our time was short (Brianna had a flight home from Kansas City to North Carolina just three days away) we modified our trip to take the quickest, shortest route. But there were some highlights along the way.
We set out to find geocaches in each state we passed through. We found the first one after taking a break to get a photo of ourselves “standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona.” We pushed on through New Mexico stopping long enough just north of Santa Fe to find a second cache. It was late when we entered Oklahoma. We passed on the opportunity to find a cache there after spending the night in Boise City* but found two caches in Dodge City, Kansas, the next morning. One was easily the largest we had ever seen; basically a small galvanized trash can hidden under an air conditioner casing.
We made it to “D” Farm with enough light left to take a tour around the wheat field in the Ranger. (Point of interest: wheat starts out looking like thick green grass!) Then we returned to Ottawa for dinner at Brianna’s favorite restaurant and my last “civilized” overnight, thanks to Janet who insisted upon setting us up.
All in all it was a very pleasant drive. It turned out that Guillie was an excellent traveler. And we had just enough time to listen to a Librivox reading of, “The Secret Garden,” along the way. It seemed quite appropriate since I expect that a significant portion of my time and effort will be devoted to gardening this summer.
This was my third car trip between California and Kansas in the past two years and I look forward to my return drive to California in the fall.
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*Our passage through Oklahoma was short in distance, only 80 miles. However it wasn’t as brief as it might have been for two reasons. First, it was night when we crossed into the Oklahoma panhandle from New Mexico. We would have to wait until morning if we were going to try to locate an “Oklahoma geocache.” We knew our options for a room for the night would be very limited; the map showed us just three cities along Highway 56. Since we didn’t see a motel as we passed through the first city shortly after 9pm, we were a little anxious when we entered Boise City. We went ahead and took a room in an old brick building in the small downtown area- hot, stuffy and somewhat over-priced. But the beds were clean and it had a shower so there we stayed, setting the alarm for 6:30am to get another early start for the last leg of our journey.
The second delay passing through Oklahoma should have been finding our “Oklahoma geocache.” Instead it was due to a pleasant but unscheduled conversation along the side of Highway 56 with a handsome Oklahoma Highway Patrol Officer. According to his radar I was passing through Oklahoma a little faster than the good folks of Oklahoma would have me. His “friendly warning” was very well-received and at that point we decided to forego the geocache and beat feet (within the posted speed limit) into Kansas.
