Another Day in the Country
Spring break
© Another Day in the Country
This past week has been spring break for area schools, which meant there wasn’t the usual Friday art class to prepare for at Centre.
“It’s a day off,” my sister said, even though the majority of my days are “off” so far as work is concerned. “And it’s the solstice. It can’t just be an ordinary day. We should do something.”
But what shall we do? Thursday night came, and we still hadn’t come up with a plan. My sister has been known to get distraught if there isn’t a plan.
Me? I enjoy serendipity. See what comes up. Surprise me.
Thursday night, the only plan we had was eating at the Durham cafe for breakfast.
Friday morning, I texted some destination possibilities to Jess. She didn’t respond, but at 9 o’clock sharp, she pulled up in front of my house. Breakfast evidently was enough of a plan to set the day in motion.
Waiting for our cinnamon toast, Jess said, “Do you know why it was important that we start our day out here?”
I did, but she told me more anyhow,
“It’s because this place has always represented Kansas food to me.”
As we ate, we talked about possible destinations, places within an hour or so’s drive that we’d never seen before.
Jess had brought along an actual paper map of Kansas that we’d picked up. We were equipped.
Paper maps are our favorite, though once we settle on a destination, we enjoy Chloe (that’s what we call our car map app’s voice) giving us instructions.
The chef at the cafe saw us with a map out on the table and came over.
“You have a real map,” he chuckled. “Can I help you?”
It turned out, he could.
“Have you ever been to Pillsbury Falls?” he wanted to know when he found out we were off on a day of exploration.
We hadn’t, so he told us about this place near Manhattan where you can actually drive your car through the river and see A in Kansas.
Waterfalls on the prairie were definitely not the kind of exploration I’d imagined for this day out. Nature lover that I am, I hadn’t been aware that Kansas even had waterfalls.
Turns out, it has several. One of them, unbeknownst to me, I’ve been driving by for years at Geary State Park, beyond Herington as you drive toward the freeway.
We’re always going somewhere else and had never taken seriously a dirt road leading into trees.
We did stop and see Geary Lake. There were dedicated fisherman out fishing, but the lake was low. That means any waterfall upstream was even lower. Besides, we hadn’t brought proper boots for hiking.
“Let’s save this one until later,” I suggested.
Driving east along I-70, we saw the possibility of spring with the hills charcoal black, still steaming, from a spring burn.
In another week or so, there will be a blanket of green, but not today.
When it came time for lunch, I was taking pictures of an old one-room log cabin on the edge of the Flint Hills with no restaurant in sight.
My sister, always prepared, had a bag of corn nuts.
“This wasn’t exactly what I’d envisioned for a meal,” Jess said as she pulled the bag out of her purse, “but they’ll do.”
We munched on those as we headed back towards civilization and home.
We did make a stop in Junction City to buy flower seed. It’s almost time for spring planting, and I’m imagining drifts of zinnias in my back yard.
Jess found a new breed of morning glory, and I was surprised to find seed for calendula, which I’d enjoyed growing in California.
I love seeds. I also like the kind of people who plant seeds and have the patience to grow seeds. Seeds remind me of my kids in art class — so full of possibility.
Once home, I sat on my front porch in amazing warmth of an evening in springtime. There was not a daffodil in sight, but I remembered how beautiful they were in a yard across the street before a cold spell.
What more could one wish for? We’d just had a wonderful day exploring our neck of the woods, and I had a whole sack full of seeds to plant, on another day in the country.