somewhere in central Kansas

I'm impressed by how well the kids are tolerating all of these hours in the car (we're probably having a much harder time with it than they are). They're whiling away the miles with Nintendo DS, books, coloring, story readers, Leapster, and even my iPhone - but I wish they would look up from the pages and displays for a while and take in the rest of the world from time to time.

The drive from Kansas City to Hays, KS is beautiful. It's carved through rolling limestone hills and lined with groves of twisted oak trees, alternating with fields, pasture, ponds, lakes and hilly grasslands. This time of year, the dominant colors range from grey to a tawny gold to dark greens... and the ever-present sapphire of the sky.

Driving this way in past years, I would see lots of active and lots of old abandoned farms, along with bales of hay and lots of oil wells. It's sobering to think that after Patty's funeral, we probably won't ever have a reason to come back to this part of the world.

The farms (both dead and living) are still there of course, and cranking out hay bales, crops and oil... but it's been a while since I've been this way. I don't know when it sprung up, but I was shocked (can you be pleasantly amazed?) to find miles upon miles of really huge windmills. The state of Kansas has apparently invested in a massive windfarm. It's beyond impressive, and really beautiful to watch these giants turning in the wind. Yeah, it's a great investment in the future and in developing alternative energy sources - but it's also kinetic sculpture on a massive scale. Very cool stuff. The photo I grabbed can't begin to tell the story - I think there are hundreds of these things... and they are huge, but maybe on the way back to KC in a couple of days we can stop and grab a shot or two with a better camera.