The Road Curved Today

Mini Oil Derrick, Grain Elevator, Unlucky Snake (bonus points if someone looks up what type of snake this is and if it's dangerous....cotton mouth???)

First time in several days. The roads in Kansas are laid out in a grid pattern I keep making lefts and rights as I'm sort of going diagonally southeast across. I'm pretty certain that I'd be in a Missouri by now if they only had a diagonal road. Anyway earlier today the road actually curved I was a bit concerned that my handle bars were stuck in the "straight" position but all worked out just fine. It's getting hotter, more humid, and much greener. Roughly around Great Bend, KS (where the AR-Kansas river makes a left hand turn) the yearly rain average triples and crops shift from sunflowers and wheat to corn and cows. By the time I leave KS I'm certain I will have eaten an entire cow....there's nothing else except for the pies which come in all fruit varieties I've been sampling several a day. I passed through the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge this morning, aka...great big mosquito breeding ground. All the various bug noises and such were pleasant that's about it. The new scary thing are snakes in the road. Mostly lurking on the shoulder half in the grass and half in the road. I guess in the morning a warm road is like a sauna to a snake. I accidentally ran one over this morning. In just about every field in Kansas there is a mini oil derrick. For the last 75 years or so oil companies have renewed mineral right leases but not actively drilled since the operations are fairly small until a year or so ago not profitable. Today everything is being drilled every other truck on the road is transporting oil. The other half of the trucks are moving grain...Kansas really does feed the world. Every little town has a grain elevator along the train tracks (sometimes that's the town) and that operation never stops at least not in the several days that I've been riding through. The people in Kansas continue to be the highlight of the state pretty much the nicest folks I've met and equipped with great pie making skills. I should make it into Missouri sometime Friday afternoon.