Tuesday May 13, 2014

 

Travel Day

 

This morning we awoke to a sunny and breezy but cold morning, 37 degrees . From our campground we traveled south on US 281; along the way we were surprised to see many “Jack Pumps” (oil wells) in the farm fields, another interesting sight was the use of
stone pillars in place of wooden fence posts for stringing barbed wire around the fields. We turned west on US 56 to the “Pawnee Rock State Historic Site”; which is a large Dakota Sandstone rock that juts up above the surrounding prairie. This was a point of reference for the Indians migrating across the plains and the wagon trains on the Santa Fe Trail. From there we continued down US 56 to the “Santa Fe Trail Center”, this was a privately run museum displaying items from the 1800’s that included reconstructed buildings and buildings that were moved from other locations. 
  We continued west on US 56 to State Rd. 156 west, and “Ft Lenard National Historic Site”. 
The fort was not a fort in the traditional way in that there were no walls, but rather a group of buildings that were used by the army for the protection of the Santa Fe Trail; after the railroads replaced the Santa Fe Trail as the primary means of moving goods, the fort was abandoned and was later purchased by a ranching family who maintained the buildings basically in
their original condition. We continued west on Rt 156 to US 283 and then north to WaKeeney KS, and the KOA campground for the night.