Day 1 of the September 2026 Kansas Trip

I was wanting to return to Kansas for a visit - to see some things I've never seen and to visit places I had not visited in a long, long time. The original plan was an eight day odyssey in last June and early July. Because of my knee surgery, we opted instead for the shorter trip duration to Chicago.

And then an opportunity came up in mid-August for G and I to go -- much shorter in days and I had to compromise a lot of my original plans. But, I still wanted to go, and in hindsight, going to Kansas was very good for my soul, for my refreshed mind. A few extra days for the Labor Day Weekend holiday.

The Kansas trip will be separated into three posts - Day 1, Day 2, and Days 3 and 4.

G and I boarded an 8 am flight at the Nashville airport to fly to Kansas City. That cut out 8 hours of drive time not counting the necessary stops in between. And on the way back as well.

We arrived at KC early on Thursday morning, picked up a new CR-4 rental car, and headed west to Hays. We would be staying in Hays for three nights. We headed west on I-70. I had planned three stops along the way but opted to only do two of them. 

Flint Hills

The first stop was in the town of Wilson. Small town but there is an interesting thing to see in the Czech capitol of Kansas - a very large Czech egg.

The park where the egg is located has other nice features including a park bench with Wilson as the back. 

Outside of Wilson heading back to the Interstate, I captured this view of a row of posts made from stone. Very common in this part of Kansas to use limestone as posts instead of wood as trees were not as plentiful.

Our next stop further west down Interstate 70 was Victoria. Amaze is that there is a minor basilica located in the small town of Victoria -- the ever stunning St. Fidelis - Cathedral of the Plains. I had not seen the interior since I was a youth. G had never seen it -- and she was stunned at the beauty. Unfortunately my camera did not even come close to capturing the beauty. 

Across the street from the church was a sculpture titled - Volga German Family by Pete Felten. Felten was a well known limestone sculpture artist. He created several sculptures in Hays and around Hays. 

The short trip from Victoria to Hays was very short! We checked into the hotel early. One of the foods I wanted to eat was a chicken noodle dinner -- something I enjoyed growing up on the farm. JD Chicken had it on the menu -- we both got the same. It was delicious and brought back some good memories of a less stressful time.

This was the route I planned for Day 2 - Friday. Day 2 blog post is a separate blog post. Hays hotel to Stockton, east to Cawker City, back west and then north to Smith Center. West from Smith Center to Highway 183, and then south to Stockton. Then west to Mt. Vernon/Webster, and south to Zurich and Hays. Originally, Nicodemus was a stop but the visitor center was closed during that time for renovations.

Random Collection of Pictures August 2026

August is always busy for me. The academic year starts back up. This August was a bit more trying with intense physical therapy. I did not include any pictures from the end of August because that will be part of the blog post for the Kansas trip.

Interesting map of more than half of adults age 25 and older with bachelor degrees by county. The green spot in Tennessee is Nashville - Davidson County. Not surprised about Madison County - Huntsville in Alabama -- literal rocket scientists and space experts dominate. Colorado surprised me. California is not a surprise with their excellent high school to college pipeline.

A very interesting read in the Tennessee Bar Association magazine about a father-son tandem duo who hiked the Appalachian Trail (AT). I was not aware that the northeastern end of the trail is nothing but boulders and rocks and a portion that has the longest section without any service point.

One of my favorite restaurants is Bea's. They asked how customers smash up their food and responded with my concoction. 

Someone had a birthday in August. And celebrated it in Minneapolis with other family members! Attended some concerts, did some sightseeing, ate some good food. They captured this picture of a Bob Dylan mural.

I finally put the corgi wind chimes up we purchased a long time ago. Just happened to have a bungee cord hanging in the right place. 

We missed out on the Red Clay Cherokee Cultural Weekend. We were driving around and we decided to go to Red Clay. They still had the shirts for sale from the weekend - so I bought one plus some other stuff. The shirt was designed by one of the park rangers at Red Clay State Historic Park.

Some memories popped up for us this month. G's high school picture popped up on her Facebook page. The building was tore down over 35 years ago to make way for the Children's Museum, IMAX theater, a hotel, and few restaurants and parking garage, plus the football field was converted to a minor league baseball team field.

 A Hamilton County Commission plaque FB post of mine where all of the commissioners signed the plaque in my honor.

A picture of the DBZ house in Cookeville.

My moment of glory saving the dorm from the room on fire - no one believed me at first. I was very lucky to have stumbled out of the smoke. Front page hero news in the local daily paper.

Something I have missed out on since really our move away from the farm -- Rooks County Free Fair. I'm glad to see it is still going on -- aptly described as where Stockton meets Stockton.

Random Collection of Pictures July 2026

Only six pictures of random collections! After the Chicago trip, not much happened, except physical therapy, lol.

My annual display for July - Parks and Recreation Month. Blown away each year by the pictures submitted by faculty and staff. 

Here was my picture that I took on the college campus.

My father-in-law in his younger days as a community baseball coach.

Someone caught a downpour of rain from Point Park on Lookout Mountain.

Wished we had a restaurant called I Don't Care in Chattanooga. Probably be the most popular spot in the city lol.

My first driving trip to Chicago in 2017.

Random Collection of Pictures June 2026

June was all about surgery and recovery, so not too many original pictures here.

Pixel celebrated her 6th rodeo!

Celebrated Dad on Father's Day with this picture posted on Facebook.

We had a colorful June display at the library with some rather cool buttons to wear.

The following states have sales tax on groceries - one of which is Tennessee.

Willa Cather described the Solomon River in Kansas very accurately.

Four Facebook pop up memories. The first one is me at the old Tennessee PTA office and the Tree of  Honor display.

The second one was from National PTA convention in 2022 and me walking across the stage as I was recognized as a state president. Just a few days from that picture I became very sick with Covid.

The band, Set It Off, actually came to my father in law's house to perform in the living room. Last I heard they are still an active band with national tours.

My bittersweet goodbye to the Vice President of Advocacy position in 2019. Wow - Cheryl and I and the board did some great work. I used that picture for my presidential portrait at the state office.

A big supporter of Rail to Trails and even Rails With Trails. I think letting old railbeds fall into disuse is not serving the community trust and deprives the use of them by communities. Here is a beautiful rail to trail in nearby Athens, TN.

Pictures I collected. First, someone caught this brewing storm at the Walnut Street bridge in Chattanooga. 

A beautiful capture of a train crossing the bridge near the Chattanooga State campus.

The gypsum red hills found in Kansas. Nothing flat about that region of Kansas. I still remember my first time discovering this area - beautiful and the ancestral home to many Native American tribes.

G took this picture of me the day before surgery. Probably not discernible from a picture but I was in quite a bit of pain.

Random Collection of Pictures May 2026

The month of May will be a two-parter with one blog on blogger and one blog on WordPress. First random collections on blogger.

G and I visited downtown Ringgold GA to eat at Aunt Effie's home cookin cafe. We walked around the corner to take a picture with the Dolly Parton mural in the background. Dolly married in Ringgold. There will be more pictures of Ringgold in part two when grand-dog Pixel came down to visit.

Alright - three maps I collected. First are counties that have less than 10 percent evangelicals per capital population. Found it interesting that a metro area like Chicago - Cook County is not but a neighboring county, McHenry County, is. Also three counties in Kansas were a surprise considering the red hue of politics: Ness, Hodgeman, and Russell counties. Notice the lack of purple counties in the Southeast - a lot of evangelicals here.

And another religion-based map. A lot of Baptists in Tennessee, a mix of Catholic and Methodists in Kansas. I believe both are accurate depictions.

Next map - I love to look at geology maps. Interesting that Tennessee has Coastal Plain in the west and Interior Low Plateaus in the middle.

Speaking of geology - I read a book that stated that nowhere in the United States than in Kansas that what is beneath the soil is seen above the ground in almost every town. A fair statement. A cool tour of Catholic churches built from limestone found beneath the ground in Kansas.

During Mother's Day weekend, Beorn stayed at the kennel for us to leave town. The kennel gave us a cute card made during the visit.

I remembered my Dad who passed away 10 years ago in May by reposting this 2016 blog post on Facebook.

Our favorite Italian restaurant, Stevarinos, for some reason decided to close. Had some good times there.

Now for a few flashbacks courtesy of Facebook memories. So cool that a memory of Dad popped up during this month. Re-plumbing the kitchen and building yard fence - so thankful for my talented Dad - love him forever.

A strong tornado hit the town of Trenton, GA hard 15 years ago. We drove there a few days afterwards for our daughter to take her SATs for college entrance. Back in the days where you had to drive a long ways to take college entrance exams.

All of the traveling I did during the month of May 2014 was just absolutely crazy! Not sure how I did it.

A big hooray in the saga of moving the office to a new temporary location. Very pleased that the office is now located back in Nashville.

I haven't crossed over it yet but there is a new bridge on campus completing the pond walk around.

A painting of the Wernli fishbowl - a place of gatherings, conversations, amusement and a whole lot of growing up by one naïve college undergraduate Dwight Hunter. The building may be gone but the memories and lessons learned are not.

I'm not an obsessed at railfanning, but I do enjoy finding unique rail way locations. Imagine the amount of work it took for this cut.