The long road home: Topeka, KS

It was fairly early in the morning when @mrsbozz and I loaded our stuff into the rental car and pulled out of the driveway we had called home for the past seven days in Thornton Colorado. I felt a slight tinge of regret as I slowly watched the mountains recede in the rear view mirror. It had been an amazing trip, but we had responsibilities at home and a long three day drive ahead of us.

While we opted for the Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska route on our way out to Colorado, on the way home I mapped out a different path so we could check a few more states off our "visit list". Day one of travel took us out of Colorado and across most of Kansas until we hit the capital of Topeka.

As much as the great plains get a bad rap for being horrible to drive through, I still contend that the Eastern half of Colorado is the worst. Sure, Kansas as mostly flat, but as we slowly approached Topeka, things started to get a bit more hilly, green, and rolling. It was quite lush and beautiful.

I wasn't quick enough to have @mrsbozz snap any photos, but I think one of the things that made me the most sad about our drive across I-70 were the old gas stations sitting abandoned at many of the exits along the way. With the advent of vehicles that can go further and faster, many of these roadside watering holes have fallen to the wayside.

I can only imagine how bustling they must have been back in the day with travelers heading out west and then back home.

Due to the time zones, we lost an hour heading out of Colorado when we moved from Mountain time to Central time. It was later afternoon when we finally rolled into hotel in Topeka Kansas. I'd gotten us a place on the outskirts of the city, so after we got settled, @mrsbozz was interested in driving around a bit and checking things out.

I got us on the highway that circles around the city and before we knew it we were arriving in the downtown area. Being larger town, I actually expected Topeka to be a lot busier than it was. Perhaps it was the fact that it was a Sunday evening, or maybe it's just that midwest pace of life.

We drove by the Brown vs. Board of Education National Historic Site, but like I said, it was Sunday, so everything was closed. That didn't stop us from getting some photos.

The area is actually a bit away from downtown, but it is nice and lush and green. They do a good job of keeping it up. The surrounding homes seem to be in a bit of disrepair, but I guess if you read the description from Wikipedia above, that probably makes a bit of sense.

Although we weren't able to tour the building, it still was cool and humbling to be in such a historic spot.

From there we drove back to the downtown area and made a couple of loops around the capital building. I've had the opportunity to see several state houses in my life and I have to admit that Kansas has one of the coolest I can ever remember seeing.

By now were getting hungry so we quickly did a little research and settled on a place to grab some dinner. I'm going to write more about that in a later post though.

As we were heading to our dinner destination, we passed this large grain elevator and when I saw the word Cargill on the side of it I told @mrsbozz that she had to take a photo. A long time ago I worked for a company that purchased the Cargill Seed company and when they did I was part of the team that traveled across the country upgrading their computer systems. It was an exciting job for a young man fresh out of university. It was also the first time I ever flew on a jet, so I have a lot of good memories of that time.

I'm sure there are folks out there who might disagree with me, but Topeka seems like a really cool area and as much as we were ready to be home, it might have been cool to spend a bit more time there. Perhaps one day we will make our way back.

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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced