A couple of days before were planning to leave our son & his family a fire broke out in Fourmile Canyon which is a little west of Boulder. The first night flames could be seen from a window on their second floor and their deck. The smoke drifted over Boulder and is seen as the light gray area on the picture. The first day the winds were too high for all the air support available but during the following days there were at least three planes that I was able to get pictures of and I was told there were several more plus a Sikorsky Flying Crane in action dropping a slurry to help the fire fighters on the ground. As I write this, the reports are that the firefighters hope to have the fire contained by Monday Sept. 13. As of Friday Sept. 10, the fire had burnt almost 6500 acres and destroyed 169 homes, cost 4 million dollars and that number is growing.     

                                              

                

The house is in the flight path for the Jefferson County Airport (JEFCO). I was sitting on the deck snapping a few pictures. Of the planes as they were taking off and landing.

     

We are now at a campground near Abilene Kansas. The next exit east of us is the town of Chapman. There are signs along I-70 advertising the Kansas Auto Museum of Racing. The owner is a lawyer and former race car driver and maker of high performance engine blocks. The beauty of these blocks was that they would accept cylinder heads from Pontiac, GM, and Ford SVO and others. It was chosen to power the new (in 1998) ARCA Lincoln Welder Truck Series. The truck series featured the Chevy S-10, Ford Ranger, Dodge Dakota and Toyota Tacoma Trucks.

There are several different types of race cars and racing memorabilia on display along with video excerpts of dirt track and hard surface races. I saw a video clip of a young Tony Stewart from his dirt track days

                  

                      

After that we rode around the town of Chapman. Saw some interesting buildings. To my surprise there was a mosque, it was there but was closed. One claim to fame the town has is that it is the home of astronaut Joe Engle.

                          

                     

We then went a few miles west to Abilene. There is a Trolley Tour, it runs on the weekends so we will miss it. There a information center and yes, they did have coffee and cookies.

                

There is the Eisenhower Center here. Since we were both familiar with his life we decided to bypass it. It seems that no matter where we are there is more to see than we have time for, so choices have to be made if we are ever going to get back home. We did go the Old Town where there are buildings dating back to the mid 1800’s. Abilene is the first of the great cattle towns along the Chisholm Trail. During the Civil War ranches in Texas were unmanaged and the herds of cattle grew while the eastern markets were hungry for beef. Cattle worth $3 a head in Texas would bring $40 to $60 dollars a head in Chicago. Joseph McCoy an entrepreneur, had an idea to build stockyards along the Kansas Pacific Railroad. After being turned down in three towns, he convinced the leaders in Abilene to go along with his idea That put Abilene “on the map”. The Chisholm Trail ran from Texas to Abilene. Millions of long horn cattle moved along the trail. The journey took four months. The cattle were moved quickly from Texas into Indian Territory where the pace was slowed to fatten the cattle before they got to Abilene. So, you mix cowboys that have been herding cows for four months, saloons with plenty of whiskey, girls and gun fights are bound to start. People like Wild Bill Hickok had all the work they could handle.

       

Wild Bill’s cabin is there along with several other of the town’s buildings.

                   

                  

The church grave yard had two interesting head stones. A horse thief that was hanged and a cowboy killed in a stampede.

I thought it was interesting to see how the building materials they had were used

      

We debated whether or not the buildings are in their original locations when we came to the T.C.Henry Carriage House which was on a concrete foundation and had a sign that said it was relocated there. We also noticed that the large tress were close to the old buildings and concluded that if the buildings would have been moved they would not have been located so close to the trees. So, until we do some research that tells us different we will believe that the old buildings are standing were they were built.

             

 

Today we are moving a little further east to the Kansas City area. So I have to get busy unhooking the water , electric and the “best” job of dumping the black and grey tanks. The link to additional pictures is: http://jackbarbic.shutterfly.com/4947
 Jack