05-10-11 - Abilene, Abilene, prettiest town I’ve ever seen

05-10-11
Abilene, Abilene, prettiest town I’ve ever seen
Women there don’t treat you mean, in Abilene.
293.8 miles
We took our time packing up from Ellis. Took some pictures, took a shower, filled out the survey officer Gabriel left with me last night and put it in the box provided for it and took off.
Next stop, Hayes -to the Wal-mart to get them to call Net-Ten for me and apply the 750 minutes and on month of service I applied on the 9th. The Wal-mart person was less than friendly and the Net-Ten person she spoke to seemed to be giving her as difficult of a time as I had when I last spoke to them. Apparently the time I applied doesn’t automatically activate when I’ve run out of days or minutes. I have to call them and use a minute of me air time to activate my new air time - or go into a Wal-mart and have them do it. As I was out of minutes and my phone wouldn’t let me activate their own number, I was left with the Wal-option.
She got the minutes applied, but apparently missed my question as to how to avoid this problem in the future and never asked Net-Ten for me. I left with the phone saying I had 749 minutes (though I hadn’t made a call on my phone) and it still said I had 4 days left. The “top up” card I bought says 750 minutes AND 30 days is what I was buying. I hoped they would adjust it later (by tomorrow at least!)
I left there and headed off to Abilene to see President Eisenhower’s Presidential Library. I has only seen Two others before his, President Clinton’s in Little Rock just about a month ago and President Reagan’s over a year ago in Simi valley when I lived there. I’ve also seen President Nixon’s childhood home in Whittier, but the Library didn’t exist back then. I’ve only been inside one of them, Reagan’s. I would have liked to have gone inside Clinton’s but time was pressing and I opted to go to the Central High School center in Little Rock instead., with Mischa in the car and still needing to find a camping spot that night and being ever practical I chose the one with no admission fee..
So it was with Eisenhower’s Library. It was free to enter too, but I had Mischa and opted to just take pictures around the grounds. I stood outside the chapel called the “Place of Meditation” where Ike & Mamie are buried; went by the childhood home and talked to a woman watering the garden. She explained that the garden was planted with heirloom varieties of plants that thwy would have had in theit garden back around the early 1900’s. Mischa then embarrassed me again taking a dump on the homes lawn. I luckily had my supply of Bio-bags with me and disposed of the “package” in a trash cane near the Museum. I took a picture of the inscription on the wall of the museum and continued towards the 5 monolithic column’s at the back of the property. As I walked towards the column’s a very long slow train was making it’s presence know as it approached and left the deopt across the street. As it passed by the Eisenhower grounds I noticed an array of solar panels.. They appeared to be the type that heated water rather than provided electricity. I wondered it it was for the Library grounds or the whole city of Abilene. I continues to the columns and saw that they were not quotations from the man, but more comments on him by the Kansas
DAR. It was they who had erected these pillars. Who’d have guessed that the Daughters of the American Revolution would be fifth columnists?
I took pictures from all sides of the statue of Ike and of the front of the library and then decided to head back to the car. The Library lawn seemed like another good place for Mischa to leave a dropping, so off to find a trash can or dumpster I went.
Near the dumpster was a fence with a tourist attraction on the other side. The Abilene & Smokey Valley Railroad (a steam engine) and “Old Abilene Town’ with an old church, stage coach, teepee and saloon all for the enjoyment of tourists. I snapped my pix and headed bck to the car. It was about 1pm and the temps were well I the mid-nineties . We got to the car and I saw one more snapshot across the street “The Greyhound Hall of Fame” (Dogs, not busses). The town was very picaresque so I snapped pictures from my car as I drove out. Some will be ok, others…not so much.
Heading to Melvern and Sun Dance along the lake shore it was still a hundred plus miles to go. The Garmin said I’d make it there by 5:20pm. Ok.
I passed by the south side of
Topeka and headed south. My gas was low and so were my cash reserves… and Kansas is one of the states with the highest gas prices. I checked the Garmin for gas stations along the route and saw one for a
Phillips 66 6 miles ahead. I hoped my gas would hold out that far as the needle was below the redline. I saw a gas station just ahead of the marker for the Phillips 66 and the gas prices were in the low (for Kansas) rande of 3.79/gal. I stopped and got $6.00. The station was called the “Sports-Mart” and I noticed the handwritten sign on the front glass door “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone”. not to disappoint, the clerk took his time coming out from the back room (I must have interrupted his TV show) and was lean, surly and never even hinted at a smile much less conversation. There were fliers about gun shows on the counter. I got the distinct impression he didn’t like me.
He really didn’t like me when I went back inside and asked for a receipt.
Off I went. The Phillips had the same price, but I’d have missed that bit of “Americana” had I not stopped at the Sports-Mart gas station. (But once is enough).
Both gas stations were just north of the town of Lyndon. A pleasant looking berg. A little touristy but on an upscale artsy sort of way. The kind of place you’d like to explore it you weren’t in a hurry to get to a campsite.
I got to the location Garman had for the campgrounds. It was in the lake campgrounds area but it was smack in the middle of a bridge. I was sure it was incorrect. I looked at the nearby campgrounds and it was in the AAA Campbook, but not me site! I saw a man coming up on a camoflaged ATV (a wonder I could see him) and waved him down He was a nice old man in perhaps his 70’s. I asked him about the campsite. “You’ll have to speak a little louder…my ears are all backed up” and so it went. He said it might be near Lebo because it said the site was on the south west side of Lake Melvern and I was on the SE side of the lake. I thanked him for his help and he rode off. I tried to see if the Garmin could find it. No Luck. I studied the AAA Campbook and the Kansas map and then discovered the site wasn’t IN Melvern, it was giving directions FROM Malvern. I studied the map and followed the route of highways and mileage and saw that it probably was just north of Lebo and headed there. Gas was low again and I was sure I wouldn’t be finding internet access at the campsite. I get off at the designated off ramp and saw there wa at least one functioning gas station there and the guide book said the camp was only 3-4 miles ahead, so I determined to camp this night, write the next day and then get gas and look for internet on Thursday the 12th. The Garming said there was a McInternet in Emporia 17 (or 30) miles away. I’m thinking the shorter number is “as the crow flies” and the bigger number is actual driving distance. Which is very much a drag, because a 30 mile round trip is 60 miles of gas!
I write for a time while light is still available, then listen to more of Fool Moon in my iTunes until I decide I can’t follow it anymore and am ready for sleep.
The rain has come as expected and the wind is there as well. It lulls me to sleep after awhile like a sailor on rough seas.