Tuesday, July 19, 2011

2011 Summer Adventure Day 11


After an unexpected pleasant stay in Cheyenne, WY, the Murrays head for Kansas.  Specifically to Downs, KS.  Home of the Howell House Bed and Breakfast -- more on this later.  Another road trip, 6.5 hours to be exact with a time zone change (mountain to central).  The original plan was to visit the first day of Frontier Days in Cheyenne.  This is the worlds largest rodeo.  But we decided to forego this since it really didn't start today and we have too many things to do in a short period of time in order to make it home by Friday.  So we head down route 80 into Nebraska - home of the cornhuskers...



As we were traveling we noticed a National Wildlife Sanctuary and decided to stop by.  You can never get enough wildlife after visiting Yellowstone.  We came face to face with the elusive grizzly...

followed by a polar bear...
We even spotted a gray wolf hiding behind a sign that read Gray Wolf.  How coincidental is that?
OK OK you got us.  We stopped at a Cabellas store along the way...
What a neat store.  The animal display was amazing.  We could have spent a couple of hours here easily...
They even had a job for you Dad Murray...
This guy was burning weeds in the parking lot with his torch.  Check out the size of his propane tank.

We left Cabelas in order to get to our first stop in Lebanon, Kansas - the geographical center of the contiguous United States.  This is the road that led up to the location...

We were kind of expecting a little more fanfare.  But no such thing.  In fact, we ran into some people that were just leaving so the place was empty...
We could understand why.  Not much to the geographical center.

Gravity must be nil here...Steve was floating...

There was even a four person chapel there...


But that's about it. So we moved on to the big attraction - the largest ball of twine.  How lucky can you get.  The largest ball of twine is so close to the geographical center of the United States. 

First there was a painted sidewalk leading up to it...

than there were the two signs surrounding it...
As we string you along (get it), it than hits you.  Whammmooo....
It's now time to head to our overnight accomodations.  A restored Bed and Breakfast only a few miles away from the largest ball of twine.  As we stated above, the Howell House is beautifully maintained in Victorian style...
We have two rooms for the night.  Jane and Steve Heide are real nice and we are looking forward to the breakfast tomorrow before we head to the Wizard of Oz museum.  Before the night was over, we went to the local Pizza Hut for dinner and than grabbed some ice cream down at the corner store where returned to the Howell House and ate it on the porch.  We than retired for the evening.  See you tomorrow.


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