Hays, KS. 420 miles, 2.8 miles, new state, 1 state capitol, 1 Merci Boxcar, 11 caches.

Because we were ahead of my plan (went to Lincoln and saw the Capitol) we went to church. So far so good. It's a nice church, but they are doing a folk music Mass, how '70s of them. I was reminded of the time in Kansas City or some town in Kansas in 1974, with the three kids: there was a woman all dressed up in white robes distributing Communion! I'd never seen this before and wasn't at all sure of it, and went to a different line.

I took the first leg driving and got on the correct road. When we got to Beatrice (obGoe) I noticed the signs for Homestead National Monument and took us there. Rich would tell you that was a mistake, but it was interesting and the mistake happened leaving there. Instead of continuing south and picking up US36, I went east on US136, a smaller road that angled north again so I lost ground. It went on and on and on and on. I wish I had maps for Kansas and Nebraska. Rich took over when we turned south. That was noon, we should have been a lot closer.

We stopped for a cache and there was a priest there who apparently had car trouble. He'd unpacked everything, including his vestments, and was on the phone arranging a ride. We had no way of helping him out.

We went to lunch at a little cafe in the outskirts of Topeka. They had a sign "The only thing more exaggerated than the joy of natural childbirth is the joy of owning your own business." Heh.

Topeka at last. The State Capitol is under a lot of scaffolding, but we got our picture and our cache. Then we went to the Brown v. Board National Historic Park. I'd forgotten that was Topeka. It is in one of the five schools which black children couldn't attend. There are displays about the case and about the times. The particularly scary one was a tunnel with video of the people screaming in Little Rock... very intense and frightening. Then we found a couple more caches in Topeka (no no-finds this day!) and got on the road at 4. The idea was to get at least as far as we could, hopefully to Hays or even beyond.

We went through Post Rock country, which is not a music thing. I couldn't get pictures, they went by too fast, but fascinating. We arrived in Hays at 8. We went to see the Merci Boxcar. It's painted red! They have a plaque on it about the people that renovated it, and one of the 40-and-8 renovators recently died and was memorialized on the boxcar.

I would have been willing to go further, but Rich was tired and looking at the weather, decided to stop here. I've been trying to budge the trip up more than my original plan, but Hays is good.

We had dinner at Whiskey Creek which was good.