21 April: On the long drive from central Missouri to central Kansas, we stopped to bike a bit of the Prairie Spirit Trail in eastern Kansas. This rail trail was not only flat, but ramrod straight for a long distance in the flat farmland. The weather had turned chilly and threatened rain. Along the way we stopped to read a couple of signs featuring photos and ecological descriptions of selected mammals and birds of the area (an Eagle Scout project). Though mostly through farmland, the trail also passed through a wooded area with a stream meandering through it. There were also several abandoned oval tanks left over from railroad days that made us stop and ponder what they had been used for. We rode six miles before turning back as it started to sprinkle a little. The wind really picked up, so that we were glad to be protected by the trees and shrubs forming a windbreak between the trail and the open farmland on both sides. Fortunately we were back on the road again when the steady rain started between our bike stop and our campground at Lake Wilson State Park.
22 April: Cold and gray in the morning, but becoming sunny and warm in the afternoon. We hiked the short but interesting Rock Town loop trail near the north shore of Wilson Lake, which was created by an Army Corps of Engineers dam in the 1960s and is said to be the clearest lake in Kansas. The trail passes over undulating prairie hills and close to a sandstone outcrop eroded into jagged pillars at the lake’s shoreline. Several plants were blossoming in shades of pink, purple, white, yellow, and magenta. Many were on very low plants catching the sunlight before the taller vegetation shades them later in the season. An occasional row of limestone fence posts serves as a reminder of the limited supply of building lumber available in the prairie. We noticed some fossilized bivalve shells on one of the posts. In the afternoon, the family camping in the next site invited us to join them for a barbecue cooked on portable smokers.
