Sunday, May 17, 2009

May 16, 2009

Not in Kansas Anymore

But we had a  nice day of sightseeing and geocaching on our way.  The RV ‘park’ next to the motel turned out to be pretty quiet.  Also, the sun comes up later when you are on the western edge of a time zone.  Quiet and less light leads to sleeping later which leads to leaving later.

First stop was Nicodemus NHS.  This was an all black community set up to give freed slaves a place to start over.  Thrived for a while but when railroad went a different direction business faded.  We stamped our NPS passport and found our first cache of the day in the park behind the visitor center.

Nicodemus Visitor Center

Off again we passed through the birthplace of Russel Stover – very quickly.  Actually Sue was looking down at the time and missed it.

We stopped for lunch in a small park that commemorates the geodetic center of the 48 states. (another cache)

 sing marker, replica

On to another town and a park built around an old dutch windmill.  (cache) 

Wagner Park Cache #4

Next cache was a little roadside park that had a small version of the Statue of Liberty. 

Statue of Liberty Cache #3

The last two caches were on the way to and at the geographic center of the 48 states.  There is a difference between geodetic and geographic locations.  Has to do with curvature of earth.  We saw them both. 

 20090516-8 marker

Cute chapel near geographic center.  Nine single person pews.

Little ChapelLittle chapel inside

We crossed into Nebraska and on a whim stopped in a state recreation spot called Crystal Lake.  Best camp spot yet.  Quiet, open grassy area.  Lots of room to spread out between neighbors (not many of those).  Mature trees.  A place one could relax in for several days.  Origin of spot is interesting.  Crystal Lake was formed by damming a small river.  The purpose of that was to form ice which was then cut into blocks and shipped to ice houses.  The operation was active one month out of the year.  The advent of refrigeration obviously ended that business and eventually a park was built at the site.



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