October 11, 2023 Day 4 Sterling Colorado to Oberlin Kansas 173 miles
We started the day with sunshine but cool. We went to the Overland Trail Museum which is well worth a stop if you are ever in Sterling Colorado. They have wonderful displays inside and out. Lots of items from the town’s history. The price is right too. Only $4.00 for seniors. They had just about everything. Farm equipment, a church, a school, doctor’s office, a barber shop (it included a beauty shop and bath house), a house, a barn, gas station, a store, a caboose and printing equipment. We spent about 1.5 hours here but could have spent longer if you read everything. The clouds have moved in and look rather threatening so we headed out.
We are going on back roads today. The number of semis is reduced but the road is only two lanes. The terrain started with rolling hills, then went very flat, and ended with smaller rolling hills. The flat portion had huge farms with corn and grain fields. The corn is being harvested so big transport semis are carrying the corn to silos. Not uncommon to see three trucks lined up to unload corn. I don’t know but it looks like they bale the corn leaves and stalks. Lots of big round bales in what had been corn fields. Surprisingly many of these fields have big sprinkler systems. I always thought they depended on Mother Nature.
We stopped for lunch at the Enders Reservoir Campground. The grounds are very dry. The flies are very sticky. Not many in the campground in the area we were in. No activity on the lake.
More windmills but no visible solar. Not nearly as many as before but most of them are turning. The snow fences in this area are rows of evergreen trees. Not nearly as many either. Most houses when you saw one were surrounded by trees. Quite windy again today.
The towns today were few, far between and small. We left Colorado and drove briefly through Nebraska before entering Kansas. We also crossed into the Central Time Zone. Connie saw a flock of wild turkeys. Rob only saw the turkey sitting next to him.
Not far out of Oberlin was a huge beef cattle company. Seemed like 30-40 acres of butt to butt cattle. They also had a huge mound of what looked like kernels of corn. Two average size tractors were moving up and down the mound for a reason I don’t know.
We arrived in Oberlin about 4:30. The town is known for excellence in music. Amazing for such a small town. The college here was the first to award bachelor degrees to women. The population is about 1,650. Rob had to spend some extra time tonight cleaning the windshield. We hit lots of bugs today.
Spoffords Travel 