As we continued our westward
journey across Kansas from Clinton State Park we were extremely surprised at
the terrain. We had always envisioned Kansas
as being flat and brown. This was not
the case, at least in this part of Kansas.
We saw a sign announcing Flint Hills -- it sounded like a nice name for
a residential community. We were going
up and down and up and down, surrounded by beautiful open green fields. We later learned that Flint Hills was the
name of the hills we were travelling through, and not a housing
development. In fact, there were no
housing developments -- just open farm land for miles on end.
We arrived at the Salina, Kansas KOA
around 3 o'clock and headed out to Mushroom Rocks State Park. This is a very small park -- only about 5
acres (compared to the 1500 acres of Clinton State Park where we stayed last
night). Neither of our two gps devices
knew anything about this park. This was
something we'd picked out of the book "Off the Beaten Path", so we
weren't too surprised. We could have
used the smart phone, or asked in the campground
office, but I looked at a map and saw
that Mushroom Rock State Park was near Kanopolis State Park, which the GPS
could find. I hoped that somewhere
along the way the State of Kansas would have posted a sign directing us the
right way. And they had.
We explored the mushroom shaped
rocks here for about 30 minutes, then took off back to the campground to pick
up the spare camera battery which I'd left in the coach. (My battery was about to die.)
Our next destination was Rock
City. The gps knew this one. And we knew there'd be signs because we'd
seen signs for it on the interstate.
It's a commercial property -- they ask for a $3 donation, so we didn't
know what to expect. We were once again,
surprised by the terrain and the scenery.
Off the interstate we were on a state highway that took us north towards
Minneapolis -- not MN, Minneapolis, Kansas.
We turned onto a dirt road at a beautiful field of golden flowers and
went up a hill.
There was sign and a
little stone cabin (perhaps a former pioneer hut) where you could deposit your
$3 fee.
There was sign and a
little stone cabin (perhaps a former pioneer hut) where you could deposit your
$3 fee.
And in a field, there were these
huge rocks, mostly dome shaped and mostly climbable. While Jim paid the fee I watched as a little
boy of about 5 scampered over the rocks,
What fun he was having!
We explored the area, and did some climbing, and looked out over the valley.
It was a beautiful day with blue skies and fluffy white clouds, and not even a breeze. So far Kansas has been good to us.
For more pictures of our travels through Kansas see Kansas
and stay tuned for the next post: the Monuments of the High Plains.
