Southwest 2021:
Day 2 - Kansas

	Wednesday, February 17, 2021: After a surprisingly warm and quiet night in single digits at a rest area, we awoke at 4:00 AM and were ready to hit the road very quickly.
	We had made it through the night without getting snowed on at all, but that was about to end, so we wanted to get moving.
	An hour later, we were driving through Kansas City, ...
	... and then were welcomed into Kansas, The Ocho's ninth state.
	On the Kansas turnpike, we stopped for breakfast around 6:30 AM and stayed for a couple of hours while the snow went past us.
	We had been parked in front of the same Kansas Jayhawk statue we had seen here on our way back from Arizona 10 months earlier. He was was part of the Jayhawks on Parade event from 2003.
	Let's go to Lawrence!
	That's where they keep the University of Kansas and more Jayhawk statues.
	We were getting lots of use from our new K-TAG transponder. This exit was right next to ...
	... the Hallmark Cards headquarters.
	Here's Lawrence.
	This Auto Tour sign told us that we were on both the California Trail and the Oregon Trail.
	A flame sculpture caught Debbie's eye, so we drove to this building, which turned out to be the Lied Center on the KU campus.
	We got a good look at the cool sculpture, ...
	... and were delighted to find a Jayhawk statue near the entrance.
	We went on to find another statue, ...
	... and another.
	We drove to Topeka next, ...
	... where we looked for a couple of Ichabod Crane statues.
	We had been here 10 months earlier to get a picture of the state capitol, ...
	... and had snapped a picture of this Ichabod statue, not realizing that he was part of a series, so we were back to get a couple more. He looked very much the same except that he was wearing a mask now.
	Here's a cute little bike rack, labeled Topeka Metro.
	Topeka has a cute downtown ...
	... filled with a variety of sculptures, like this giant pencil, ...
	... and this little train engine.
	We got our third Ichabod Crane statue and decided that was plenty.
	We refilled our propane tank on our way out of town. The nice man who filled it for us told us that they had been out for three days, finally getting a shipment the day before, leading to a line of people waiting up to several hours to refill. That's what an extreme cold snap will do to supply and demand.
	Further down the road, Debbie happened to check her Roadside America app just in time to see this silo painted as a Coca-Cola Classic can.
	This sign for the Flint Hills Rodeo doesn't have a date set anymore in the age of COVID-19.
	We passed the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, ...
	... but just took a picture of it rather than stopping.
	Kansas is covered with oil rigs ...
	... and large ranches. This one had multiple entrances with matching signs.
	Behold, the ranchlands.
	Panther Ranch's entry gate featured panther silhouettes.
	Here's a sign for the Santa Fe Trail Auto Trail.
	We drove to Marion, Kansas, ...
	... to see their rhinocerous statues. We were surprised to discover that they were really, really small. Can you spot the one in this picture?
	It was time for lunch, so Debbie had ordered lunch online from CB Baked Goods, on the first floor of this beautiful old building.
	The owner was very nice and told her the history of the building. She and her husband retired to Marion seven years earlier, bought the building, and renovated it. It was built in 1911 and was originally a hospital. Her father-in-law was born upstairs in the hospital, which is now her and her husband's living quarters. Since opening her bakery, she estimated that she has made over 65,000 bierocks.
	We had a bierock and a bolso for lunch, and kept one of each for breakfast the next day. The bierock was a yeast-dough pocket filled with ground beef, onion, and cabbage. The bolso was also a yeast-dough pocket, but it was filled with ham, leeks, spinach, and cheese. They were so delicious, and so were the peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies we bought too.
	After eating lunch in The Ocho, we drove up Main Street looking for rhino statues.
	This one had a baby rhino statue with it.
	Here's one, ...
	... and another, ...
	... and another.
	We turned around to get pictures of the statues on the other side of Main Street.
	Here's another, ...
	... and another, ...
	... and another? Nope, not really - this guy was in the local park in the playground and doesn't really match the other ones in town.
	The last one we saw was at Casey's General Store on our way out of town.
	His rhino horn had been humorously painted like an upside down, melting ice cream cone.
	Less than an hour later, we were in El Dorado, ...
	... heading to El Dorado State Park. El Dorado Lake was created by a dam, and we saw families sliding down the hill behind the dam.
	We drove to the entrance, ...
	... and were given instructions to get to the only open full-services campground.
	None of the campgrounds along the lake were open during the off-season. Bummer.
	We picked a very pretty site with lots of open space all around us.
	The few other residents of the campground all appeared to be longterm campers who were grouped around the back of the campground in the shade, so we didn't have nearby neighbors.
	The claim that this campsite was full hookups was false, as we couldn't find a sewer drain, and the water didn't work, although it did dispense enough water for just long enough to make Tom think that it did. We learned the next day that the fresh water fill also didn't work and the RV sewer dump was frozen shut. Fortunately, we always carry jugs of extra water with us and really just needed the electricity.
	It was still very cold outside, but the sun streaming inside made it very warm.
	This pretty guy stopped by the tree nearby.
	Here's The Ocho in our camp.
	We enjoyed a lovely sunset from our side window. We brought cooked turkey from home, so we heated up half of it and made turkey and gravy for dinner.
	Tom had spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out if the lack of running water was caused by something wrong with our rig. He did find a hole in the floor that needed some better insulation so he used the can of foam insulation that we brought with us. But a last minute test of the outside water faucet showed that its original ability to dispense water was just a trick, and that water had never once actually flowed into our rig. Day 3 >