Here’s something you might not know about Kansas: the people there are fully aware of the reputation of their state as a boring place to visit. What’s more, they go to great lengths to do something about it, and have for about a hundred years.
Kansans will take anything historic, notable or just down-right weird and build it up into a tourist attraction. Whatever it takes in order to get you to stop your car and spend some money as you speed across the prairie. In this post I’ll touch on three such efforts, varying in age, funding and audience appeal. All very different, but all 100% Kansas shtick.
I’ve you’ve ever driven to California from the Midwest, you probably remember driving across Kansas. I-70 bisects the the state in a merciless dead flat, arrow straight line of pavement. Hours of boredom before you can reach Denver or Kansas City is the way most travelers think about the Sunflower State, and I was no exception. This is my account of the trip that changed my mind about this “space between”.
Colorado transit
Ordinarily Colorado is a destination, a place to enjoy the spectacular Rocky Mountains after crossing trackless expanses of desert to the West or equally flat grain fields to the East. On this occasion circumstances were different. A Canadian Clipper was swiping down from the North, and the forecast was for significant snow. While this was great news for the ski resorts like Vail, Loveland and Copper Mountain ahead of me, I had no intention of being caught on the wrong side of the mountains in a snowstorm.
Accordingly, I got an early start out of Thompson Springs Utah and put my rig on Interstate 70 at the full speed limit, a rarity for me.
Previously, I mentioned the great tip on Professor Valley I received from the camp host at Ballard RV Park in Thompson Springs. This post describes the second destination he told me about – the remote canyons of the Book Cliffs to the North. Access to the area is by semi-improved BLM roads, which are navigable by cars for the most part, assuming you have decent ground clearance and exercise common sense. It wet weather or beyond the ruins of Sego you’d better have all wheel drive and be prepared to take care of yourself; there is no cell service in these canyons.
Map of Thompson & Sego canyons at info kiosk in Thompson Springs.
Entry point into Thompson Canyon, looking North
The road to the petroglyphs is pretty good in dry weather, except for a few sand wash crossings
Thompson Canyon gets tighter North of the Sego canyon turn-off
Sego canyon road – one of the best maintained sections just below the ghost town
This serious cut once allowed the railroad tracks to pass through a ridge between Thompson and Sego canyons.
