Travel Day 2, 9/3/08

September 3rd was essentially gloomy, with periods of rain & little sun until the last 20 miles or so. Not the best lighting for photography. We left Topeka on the KS turnpike, cut west on US-56 to Council Grove (an interesting town), then south to Tallgrass National Prairie Preserve. Cold and windy, but the grass was taller & better than on our first visit a couple of years ago. We'll see how the pictures come out after a bit of photoshopping.

Next, we visited Cottonwood Falls (of Prairie Erth fame) - neat brick streets and a classic old courthouse. From there, it was highway for quite a while. We visited Pawnee Rock, which is overgrown with trees so the view isn't what it was when the Santa Fe Trail was active. Next stops were in the Larned area: the Santa Fe Trail Museum and Ft. Larned Nat'l Historic Site.

Finally got to Garden City about 5:30 - 337 miles plus about 9 more running around Garden City. Our mileage is up to 20.8, as we drove about 64 MPH and had a quartering tailwind.

Tomorrow - US-50 to La Junta CO, cross country to Walsenburg, through the mountains to Great Sand Dunes and finally Alamosa.