Long, Straight Road

When you get off the main roads around Marysville the farms stretch beyond the horizon. Out in the countryside there are gravel roads, as straight as the land permits, spaced a mile apart. The square mile they enclose is known as a section.

It's pretty quiet out here except for the sound of farm equipment and the wind.                

Antique Tastes

One of Marysville's attractions is the Koester House, with its museum and somewhat strange gardens. German immigrant Charles (Karl?) Koester arrived in town in 1860 and soon made a name for himself. He ended up becoming the town banker, built a very fancy house by the standards of the day and filled the garden with reproductions of, I don't know, Greece-Roman-Renaissance-Baroque sculpture.  The garden isn't very big, the pieces seem thrown together in a crowded way, and yet it tells us something. What were the tastes of the well-to-do 150 years ago? The place seems very foreign in a prairie filled with corn fields.

Madeleine In Marysville Monday: 1 or 2?

1. Audition for a slasher movie, maybe. At breakfast at the Wagon Wheel Cafe. The knife wasn't very sharp.

2. A more traditional approach. She's been a good girl all year, mostly.         

Marysville, Kansas

I've been visiting here a time or two a year for more than 40 years. Mrs. C went to high school here and grew up on a farm 17 miles away. Marysville has about 3,300 people. The area is rolling prairie, not at all flat. Farmers grow corn, wheat, milo and alfalfa. Some raise cattle. When you drive down the gravel country roads the drivers of oncoming cars always wave hi as they pass.

This is small town America. Kansas has conservative booze laws and most bars can only serve beer with 3.2% alcohol, yet they are well-patronized. The main street appliance store survives despite the Walmart on the edge of town. Since I was here last summer, benches have sprung up all over town memorializing the deceased members of so many classes of Marysville High School. And why not paint a neo-primitive picture of the Wagon Wheel Cafe (where breakfast provides enough calories to last a week) on a circular saw blade?              

Happy 98th, Elvira

My wife's mother, Elvira Kruse, will be 98 years old on Tuesday. It's the reason we come out here every Thanksgiving. She's rather frail physically but her mind is perfectly sharp. She remembers many things that her children do not.

Here she is surrounded by two of her grandchildren, my daughter Emily on the left and niece Tricia upper left, and great grandchildren too numerous to name. (And there are many others.) Only my Madeleine is out of sorts.              

Thursday Arch Series, Plus Some Other Stuff

No pictures from Kansas yet, although there is lots to shoot today and tomorrow. So, a recent picture from STL. The view is from the northwest corner of the baseball stadium. On a sunny afternoon these four buildings march forward from the Arch. The middle two are the Hilton Hotel. The one on the left, the tallest building downtown (there's an understanding that nothing should be taller that the Arch), is a couple of blocks further back.

Out to the family farm  today.          

If You Haven't Finished Making Your Holiday Plans . . .

Why not consider Thanksgiving dinner at the Travel Centers of America truck stop in Foristell, Missouri, about 50 miles west of St. Louis? Hey, and you get $5 off at your next visit. Come back at Christmas!

Our stops on the way to Kansas City were a bit more frequent than usual due to a certain special passenger. She slept through most of central Missouri, though. Who wouldn't?