Tuesday,
August 11, 2015 Trip Odometer
2,110 miles Limon, CO
A
better day today. Up at 7, arrived at the car repair place before 8:30. “Christian
Brothers” was not just the owner’s surname. The waiting room was loaded with
bibles, positive-thinking-through-Christ books, etc., and the PA was loudly
playing Christian rock. Frankly, I’d rather listen to operatic arias or
old-school rap. Still, I’d only knitted a round-and-a-half of my hat when the
mechanic called me out to see the problem: a hole in the exhaust pipe, not a
threat. She said it could easily wait until I returned home to fix as long as I
can stand the noise. I can, it’s better than Christian rock.
Elated
by the good news, I negotiated the Kansas City urban traffic with little
difficulty and entered Kansas. Home of Mingo,
the oldest continuously-maintained geocache in the world. Totally apart from
state souvenirs, Goal #2 of the trip out. Only 400-odd miles away. Kansas is
big. And friendly, I discovered. The sign at the first rest stop said “Dunkin
Donuts.” Could it really be? Coffee had been steadily getting worse as I
progressed west, until this morning’s bitter swill which I’d had to double-sweeten
and cream heavily. I hadn’t seen a Dunkin Donuts since eastern Kentucky. Was it
a mirage? NO! I walked in the rest stop building, and there it was. What’s
more, a bank of Coke machines topped with a flashing neon sign proved that I
had left Pepsi country behind and was back in the Coke-dominated world. This
wasn’t a rest stop, it was heaven. I went back to the car with the largest
coffee DD sells and a glazed chocolate donut, which was my lunch some miles
later.
It
was a pleasant day of driving. Kansas unfolded around me, miles and miles of
miles and miles. Eastern Kansas isn’t as flat as I expected, but was rolling
and sometimes wooded, although the trees were mostly unfamiliar to me. I kept
reminding myself that, between the Mississippi River and Denver, land altitude
rises nearly a mile, and most of this is in Kansas, so gradually that even
Bruce didn’t object to the climb.
The
most obvious feature of the view here is the sky, which seems to arch more than
180 degrees overhead, dominating the earth below with its ever-changing palette
of blue and white (and occasionally grey). Below, in addition to the expected
agriculture, there were quite a few cattle, plus the pens and chutes for
sorting them and rolls of hay for winter feed. The highway was often cut
through a hill, revealing several layers of sandstone, some red, some a
distinctive yellow, and wide layers of chalk-and-flint, which I found very
exciting. As often as I’ve read about flint knapping and yearned to try it
myself, this was the first time I’d seen the stone in its natural setting. Some
of the sandstone layers seemed crumbly, making me wonder if fossils can be
found here (it turned out they are), and in deep folds of the land I had
glimpses of some stone more structured, harder; possibly granite. I wish I knew
more about geology, it seems so interesting, but I’ve never been able to tell
one rock from another if they were the same basic type. As I took in the
passing scenery, every once in awhile, with a little thrill of anticipation, my
mind would whisper the single word: Mingo.
Except for a couple stops for gas, I
drove steadily westward at 75 miles an hour. I was amused, approaching Salina,
that one billboard said “The Friendliest Yarn Shop Anywhere!” with the letters
Y-A-R-N imposed on colored balls of yarn. Imagine a place where a yarn shop can
afford a billboard on the Interstate. There was another for another yarn shop
more than a hundred miles along. If I hadn’t been on a tight schedule to
Seattle, I might have stopped. But, there was Mingo…
So gradually I didn’t notice it
happening, the land flattened out, becoming the true prairie that is
stereotypical Kansas. “Dippy-birds,” as I call the oil pumping devices that dot
the west, began to appear. In addition, the largest collection of solar windmills
I’ve ever seen, even huger than the array on Dartmoor in England, spread across
the land. Below them, the little traditional water-pump windmills spun merrily
while the more modern ones barely moved, ponderous and dignified. (Mingo)
Signs began to appear near Hays,
indicating that this is indeed the Bible Belt. Literal signs. These are not the
crudely scrawled boards along Southern roads, but neat and often artistic
signs, some featuring artwork including full-length portraits of Jesus. I find
these more esthetic and less threatening than a board spray-painted, “REPENT OR
ELSE.” But I have my own prayer: Mingo is
near.
A last rest stop, and I turn on the
Garmin. Mingo is less than 30 miles west. With one eye on the road, and one on
the Garmin, I decide to take an exit five miles before the cache, one with a
gas station, so anyone who sees my CITO t-shirt and understands it will realize
geocaching is contributing to the local economy. My (faulty) memory of the map
places Mingo at a back-roads crossroad, and I set off up one of the ribbons of
packed dust that is Kansas’ idea of a county road (still better than Illinois).
Two miles, and the numbers counting down miles-to-the-cache stop going down.
The arrow points left, so I turn onto another ribbon of dust. Better, the
numbers are dropping again. Left again at a T-intersection, and I see the
distant movement of traffic on the Interstate. With less than two miles to go,
it seems I’m approaching I-70 again. Was there a closer off-ramp? Yes, I
discover, as the road turns briefly to concrete as it goes over the four-lane.
A hundred yards to the cache, my Garmin says, and the needle abruptly wheels left,
then back, and the numbers rise again. A little ribbon-of-dust goes off to the
left and curves back towards the highway, veering right again at the berm. I
turn, spotting a familiar-looking post-and-wire fence. I’ve seen this place
before, in pictures. A K-turn to get the most convenient pull-off spot, and I
gather my equipment and get out of the car. A corner fence post, a conspicuous
rock in front of it, draws me. I pry up the rock, and it falls to reveal…
Mingo. World’s oldest geocache. A big cylindrical container, the top held on by
a huge hose-clamp thing, set neatly into a custom-made concrete-lined hole.
I take many, many pictures. I open
the container, sign the log, sort through the swag within looking in vain for
any of the 26 trackables reputed to be in this cache. At length I put in my
ASPGB IX proxy geocoin, and solemnly swap swag, taking someone’s signature
poker chip and leaving my very favorite dayglo smiley lanyard. With a feeling
of being a part of history, I close the container and re-hide it. Mingo. I
found Mingo. The heat and dust of Kansas are friendly to me now. I drive the
four hundred yards up the road to find a tribute cache, neatly hidden.
Then it’s back on the road, off
westward once more. Less than an hour sees me over the Colorado border,
although the scenery looks identical. Only the road has changed… definitely
less well-maintained than it was in Kansas. But, I am not in Kansas anymore…
The welcome center is eleven miles
from the border, and there I discover that one of the two Colorado caches I’d
downloaded was right on the border, and only accessible from the westbound side
of I-70. The other is over 90 miles west. I take to the road, but Bruce is
demanding gas again and my stomach is demanding something that is not junk
food. Exits go by with nothing around them, except for the occasional
obviously-vacant building. Are there ANY places to eat, gas, and stay between
here and Denver? A little town called Limon eventually proved to have a couple
gas stations, a pretty good steak house, and an Econolodge. Here I sit,
savoring the day’s triumphs.
Mingo was an incredible find. It was
also my first in Kansas, my farthest west, and farthest from home. These are
statistics that don’t mean a thing to anyone but me, but they are achievements
I value. Now, tomorrow is another, very long, day.
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