Central Kansas Trip; Day 1

My little Passion Fruit and I took off on a three day trip to central Kansas in our Mustang convertible. Normally we prefer traveling on two lane highways but since we wanted to make time to start with we drove I-70 west to the Manhattan exit. We drove north on Hwy 177 to Manhattan, home of the Wildcats, where we caught Hwy 24 westbound. We did stop north of Manhattan for gas and a break. It was close to 90 degrees already so the top went up for the rest of the day. No need to be uncomfortable when you don't need to.

In Leonardville we stopped for lunch at Nelson's Landing Restaurant. We ate here once before and the vitals were good so there we were again. The daily special was a chicken burrito that was tasty. Nelson's is owned by the Nelson family (big shock). Jordy Nelson is part of that family. Jordy was a walk-on football player at Kansas State University. He ended up being a starter and had a stellar collegiate career. He played professionally for awhile at Green Bay and now he plays for Oakland.

Hwy 24 goes through Cawker City, home of the world's largest ball of twine. How could we resist?
I tried to hug it but could not quite get my arms around it..

At the town of Downs we turned north on Hwy 181, which turned into 281 at Hwy 36. Just north of Lebanon we turned west on Hwy 191, which dead-ends at the Geographic Center of the Lower 48 States. It was a pretty area so we stuck around to take some photos. We were only 12 miles or so south of the Nebraska line.


From the geographic center of the U.S. of A. we drove back south to Hwy 36 and west to Smith Center, where we picked up Hwy 281 southbound. At Luray we caught Hwy 18 eastbound to Lucas, the home of the Garden of Eden (Garden of Eden) and other strange artistic endeavors.

Hwy 232 took us south from Lucas, past Wilson Lake and I-70 to Wilson, the Czech capital of Kansas (Wilson). We stopped at the Midland Railroad Hotel (Midland), our home for two nights.

Total mileage today was approximately 350 and it was a scorcher. The Mustang showed the temperature to have reached 102 degrees. I believe the Mustang temperature readings are about 3 or 4 degrees too hot.

That evening we enjoyed an ice cream treat at Grandma's Soda Shop.

To see all the photos taken today click on the following link: Day 1

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