2022 Trip Southwest – Day 3 (Wichita to Greensburg), April 24, 2022
Since I decided to retire hors de combat from the reenactment, and my locked-in reservation at Greensburg is less than 2 hours from Wichita, I needed to kill a bunch of time. Didn't get up until almost 7, took my time packing and loading the car (the latter in part necessitated by the lack of a luggage cart), and had breakfast at a crowded Village Inn. Time for some analysis.
A quick look at the map told me that KS-42 and some side roads would bring me out near Greensburg. Ha! It starts as a 4-lane, passes a Cessna.Beechcraft plant near the airport, and crosses Cowskin Creek. When it narrows to a 2-lane, the speed limit remains at 65. I pass some hay bales, big & small, set up to look like a puppy. Suppesville has the Warehouse of Terrors, open in October. At Norwich, a swooping eagle mural adorns a garage.
Heading west now, another abandoned RR right-of-way runs along the road. Adams' (the town) demise marked by an abandoned wooden church and a closed school. Further west, I pass a big oil well pump all by itself; it turned out to be the first of very many along the roads. Clumps & lines of trees seem to have all seen better days as shelterbelts or around abandoned farmsites. Now, the first of many windmills shares the prairie with wells and grain elevators – the key to keeping a single RR track open supporting what prosperity exists in this area.
West of Spivey, I cross the Chikaskia River, then pass a tree occupying half of a double silo. Elevators line the tracks at every small town along the line – Zende, Nashville, Isobel, and Sawyer, where KS-42 ends. I now follow a paved county road past Coats. I see fields with straggly left-over cotton on some dried-up plants – Sandra would have made me stop so she could pick some.
After 12 miles my options are to go north to US-54 on a paved road, or continue west on gravel. I choose gravel. Most of the gravel was brown, but one stretch had large patches of white. After 6 miles of gravel I head north on paved 140th Ave for 4 miles, then turn left onto a road that wass more dirt than gravel. This road had wheat planted no-till in last year's cotton fields. Three miles of this, another northbound paved road, and I'm on US-54/400, hurriedly accelerating from the leisurely pace pursued on the back roads.
Got to Greensburg at 1300, and, mirable dictu, my room was ready at the Best Western Night Watchman Inn. After Greensburg's devastating 2007 EF-5 tornado, the resilient survivors decided to make the town live up to its name. They rebuilt for energy efficiency! The town's claim to fame, the world's largest hand-dug well, survived, but the associated museum didn't. It's been replaces with a modern structure that tells the tale of the well and the tale of the tornado – a rather moving exhibit, that.
The museum behind a commemorative sculpture
After supper at Reggie's Pizza, I retired to my well-appointed room to update my trip story and review tomorrow's travel – Portales, NM via US-183, US-64, OK/TX-23, TX-207, TX-136, US-60 & US-70.
For the day: 128.2 miles (105.2 'virgin'), for the trip 448.3 (265.2 'virgin').
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