HEARTland!

It's an interesting start when the first thing you encounter is an automobile accident...we turned around and verified everyone was OK before resuming our travel.

Who put that fire hydrant there at 4 a.m.?

Interestingly, the 84° morning temp in The Fort which we assumed would be the day's low turned out to be the high!!! Ahhh...

Made Oklahoma before sunrise and stopped at the Family Diner in Gracemont for first road breakfast and it was ... perfect! Locals talking about rain and hay, plus homemade apple pie! For those of you new to our adventures, pie is a target species and always worth trying, even to the exclusion of protein or nutrient rich food items...

Started my travels on FM-81 to US-181 to US-281 our designated lifeline to Canada and the longest 3-digit highway in America. Coulda taken IHs and traveled much faster but then we'd miss the Heartland, America's rolling rural region full of interesting delights like...

The Post Rock region of Kansas where industrious folks made fence posts from layers of exposed limestone. 

Kansas' impressive version of mesquite thorns!

The Geographic center of the continental US outside Lebanon, KS

We call 281 the Central Highway because it's in the middle of everything... so from the self-proclaimed Center of the Universe to the center of the US for a start.
More importantly, it puts us in touch with great folks like Charlie from the South 40 bar who's been putting up hay 36 years; Tom Watt, the Nebraska bass player who's performed ay the Saxon Pub, Gruene Hall and sitch; Avery, from the Palace Diner, who's in 8th grade at Red Cloud, NE with 6 boys and 15 girls and where the junior high bands plays during football games;

The corn-fed Nebraska ribeye Avery served up!

and Les, Army and USDA vet and team roper from south NE who sat the front porch of the motel with us and shared stories about Vietnam, the dozens of different places we've both hunted, and his best wishes for our adventure over whiskey and Lucky Strikes!
He also complimented Burf! for having the most "fashionable saddle bags" he'd ever seen...
We could choose a faster route, but then we wouldn't be so centered...