Along the way, day 2, Thursday 6/16

I began to get a feel for the plains today, as fields got larger and one could perceive monumental expanses of open countryside.  it wasn't hard to imagine grassland as far as the eye could see, no buildings, no fences, no trees.  The circle of the earth takes on real meaning here.

As i moved westward, corn gave way to more wheat (they grow a lot of wheat in Kansas) and some low growing bring green row crop--sorghum?  Though I was on traveled two lane blacktops, towns were few and far between.  There is still a lot of between town space in Kansas.

At one point I could see buildings on the horizon, so left my route and discovered various businesses, including a McDonald's on some strip of some town which remains unidentified. though I'm way too healthy to eat McD's (ha!), i felt I had to at least order something with my coffee to justify an hour of wifi.  My guilty pleasure, a triple cheeseburger with jalapenos.

The counter lady, an East Indian, said "What?"  I repeated--she asked the manager, and of course it turned out they had not a jalapeno in the building.  The lady suggested that I must be from Texas.  I told her all the McD's I knew in Arkansas (admittedly a small sample) had plenty of jalapenos.

What Kansas lacks in jalapenos, it makes up for with... roundabouts.  These are traffic regulating road systems used in place of crossing intersections.  They are common in Great Britain, I think, and I have seen more than a few around New England.  But Kansas, who would have thought?

Terrain: flat to gently rolling hills all day,  But as I approached my destination, Lake Scott State Park, I began to see hills, and bluff lines of stone.  I know I'm a long way from the foothills of the Rockies yet, so I suppose they're just a localized topological characteristic.