Day 17: Milford Lake, KS to Wallace, CO

Our early morning fishing trip with Captain Bryan on Kansas’ largest lake, yielded many bites and lots of blue catfish to take home for supper. The wind was blowing gently from the West, which is apparently unusual here, but it meant fairly calm water. Our catch totalled eleven with Alistair hauling in giant after giant catfish. We weren’t sure how the smallest human caught the largest catfish but it will sure make for some good eating.

Our morning view out the camper door.

This fish was so heavy, Ali could barely hold it up!

Seamus caught a huge one too!

We then traded in the roadkill armadillos of the Ozarks and the catfish and cormorants of Milford Lake for nodding donkeys (mini oil rigs), beef cows, and windmills as we drove across the Great Plains from Kansas to Colorado. We stopped to see the very unimpressive “Former Largest Spur” in Abilene, KS. Luckily we also needed to stretch our legs and buy some snacks at the Dollar General.

After being chased by some foul looking weather, we stopped for dinner at an extraordinarily windy rest stop where we wrestled with our food trying to stop everything from blowing away - including ourselves! Onward we go - Westward ho!

Each windmill makes a farmer about $20 per day.

A nodding donkey also makes a farmer about $20 a day - at least until the oil well runs dry.

Where we’re going.

The storm chasing us!

This cloud looks like a running chicken.

Google told us today that grain siloes are the high rises of the plains. It wasn’t wrong.

The Buffalo Bill monument.

Driving into the sunset.

We are overnighting at Wallace Cemetery in as middle of nowhere as we have been so far on this trip. The cemetery is all that is left of Fort Wallace though the soldiers originally buried here have since been relocated. The kids are creeped out sleeping in a cemetery but I think it is oddly comforting being surrounded by the bones of early settlers, adventurers, and pioneers. I bet we will sleep like the dead, lol.

Our sleeping spot for tonight.

Free spot!

Alistair checking out the headstones. He isn’t sold on this sleeping spot.

Lightening flashing in the distance. We can see SO far!