Waking up to smoky air and a fine coating of ash on the car and camper was confirmation that we shouldn’t head farther west. I was really hoping that the 11 days of our journey to Colorado would be enough time for the fires to be contained and safe passage to California would be possible. Looking around at other places we might visit came up with no good options. Taos looked like a fun place to visit, but then NM put in a 14-day quarantine for out of state visitors. The other problem with going to new places is that the options for things to do is very limited in the time of Covid – the dining scene is out, as are all of the indoor sights, and any other popular attractions that tend to get crowded. We are still being extra cautious.
One place that we knew we could head to was Oak Island, NC, where we could spend as much time as we wanted at our beach house – a week on the beach sounded so good! But then I checked our rental reservations, and someone had just booked it for the following weekend. Oh well, 3 days on the beach is better than none, so we started driving eastward.
East of Denver, there isn’t much happening in CO. Lots of open land with cows and farmland. The fields of CO gave way to sorghum fields in Kansas, and hundreds and hundreds of wind turbines – way too many to possibly count.
Our first stop was an Atlas Obscura site in Goodland, KS – an 80-foot tall easel with a 24-foot x 32-foot reproduction of van Gogh’s “Three Sunflowers”. Kansas is the Sunflower State, and Goodland is in the center of the sunflower industry. The artist, Cameron Cross, had planned seven of these installations – one for each of van Gogh’s Sunflower Paintings. Canada and Australia are home to the first 2, and it looks like this one in Kansas was the last to be built. Another funky sight to see in the middle of nowhere.
For the night, I had found an Army Corps campground near Junction City, KS – Curtis Creek Campground. All of the sites were first come, first served, and this was their last night of the season. It looked like there should be some spots open. The camping loops were right along a lake, and no highway nearby! When we arrived, the campground host welcomed us and said to pick any spot and pay online. We were right that there were spots open – on the loop we chose there was only one other camper. For $20 we got a great spot near the water with electricity and water hookups. We watched the sun set over the lake, and a beautiful moon came up in the other direction. It was such a nice place to spend the night. If it hadn’t been their last night of the season, we might have stayed for another night. The hosts came by in the evening to make sure everything was good, and we had a nice chat with them.
