Abilene and Greensburg, Kansas

We left the 150 year old stone house south of Lawrence yesterday morning with Liam, Ken’s son to go to St. John, Kansas. The day before we had toured the Kansas University campus and taken in the new Bob Dole Institute of Politics.  Impressive place. We will always wonder how different our country’s history would be if Dole would have become president instead of Clinton’s second term.

But our mission for this day was to get to St. John, where Ken’s dad grew up, south and west from KU Jayhawk territory.  On the way we stopped in a small town of Abilene where President Eisenhower grew up, they have a big library and museum building on the 20 acre premises.  We bought “I Like Ike” buttons and then filled up with gas at the cheapest place we have seen along the road, $2.94 per gallon.  Saw a cheaper place of $2.87 but we were happy to find this because gas has been about $3.29 or so along the freeway.

After we arrived to St. John’s library, we went through old photos that Ken’s great grandpa had taken as a professional photographer, then went to the family’s old studio that is in sad disrepair.  We parted ways with Liam who had a 4 hour trip back to Kansas City and we continued on to Greensburg.  If you recall several months ago on the evening of May 4th, a tornado ripped through this small town.  As we entered from the east side it didn’t look too bad, we began to doubt the photos we had seen.  But going along we could see the twisted metal or blown out buildings as we went west.  THEN, we saw what used to be the residential area and it was clearly devastated.  The big trees were void of all their branches and green leaves after the tornado looked “furry” because they were trying to grow back their green branches.  It looked surreal to see the openings of basements but no houses, only tree trunks.

Enough of seeing the destruction and taking pictures, we moved on into the sunset horizon to stay with Ken’s cousin in Ashland.  Our new adventure today will be to tour the town Ken grew up in in Ulysses before we head to Colorado.  So many people to see, so many miles to roam.  It has been a very good trip so far.  Praise the Lord!