Traveling Through Kansas

We entered Kansas around noon on Sunday, October 18th. We found our last geocache using a flashlight. 

We have been looking for geocaches with higher favorite points on this trip as well as quick finds and easy pull-offs when towing the trailer. This cache had all three. The owner built a large container to hold all sorts of farm related toy animals. It deserved favorite points because to the time, creativity and care the cache owner put forth.

variety of metal flowers at a community park

longhorn steer at a cafe

a collection of wooden windmills, saved from nature's destruction

welded barrels shaped like an airplane

it moved in the wind

located at a small town airport

the grass was greener on the other side of the fence

rock chip before noon on Monday

world's biggest easel in Goodland 

The easel stands 80 feet tall and weighs 45,000 pounds. The supports are sunk 35 feet into the ground. The 'sunflower' painting is 32 x 24 feet. 

Kansas is the "Sunflower State," and Goodland is at the center of the local sunflower industry, so it makes sense. It made enough sense to the trade group, Sunflowers USA, that when Canadian artist Cameron Cross pitched them the idea in 2000, they raised the $150K necessary to build the thing. After overcoming some visa problems, Cross arrived and the Easel was dedicated in August 2001, during Goodland's Sunflower Festival.

Goodland's painting is a version of "Three Sunflowers In A Vase," one of the seven sunflower paintings Van Gogh made back in the late 1880s. Cross wanted to make giant tributes to all seven (Six originals still exist; one in Japan was destroyed in a bombing run during World War II). However, it looks as if the project might have stalled out. The first giant easel went up in Cross's hometown of Altona, Manitoba, in 1998, and in 1999 he finished one for Emerald, Australia. But it appears that Goodland's has been his last.

other Van Gogh paintings (reproductions) at the Visitor's Center

Since I have seen a couple of original Van Gogh paintings, this geocache find was by far my favorite in Kansas.

rock chip spread on Wednesday

it is going to grow with the CO temps!