Cache County

Well, when I left off we were about to discover Manhattan, Kansas. Our hotel here was the Bluemont and it was right across the street from Kansas State University. I gravitate to staying in towns with universities. I like exploring campuses, checking out Libraries, and usually there is a lot of lawn for walking the dogs. Unfortunately the KSU campus was inundated with fat red squirrels which made walking the dogs difficult.

I made two discoveries in Manhattan that I want to share - KSU has a great Library and we in Massachusetts have a connection to this town.

When I went into the Main Campus Library (sans dogs) I introduced myself at the front desk and was immediately pressed to have a tour of the Library's best features by "Steve." Really nice guy. He told me that three years ago there was a major fire in the Library building and that what I saw now was after a $400 million dollar restoration. That means that the Library is a hub of fantastic up-to-the minute technology of which he was proud. He took me up to the top floor of the Library to show me what he called the "Hogwarts Room." This room was not destroyed by the fire even though it started in the roof, but suffered huge water damage. None of the Library's 300,000 million books were burned but they all had to be sent out to be cleaned and rid of the fire smell. What a mess that must have been.

The Hogwarts Room is also known for four huge murals that were painted as part of the Public Works Art Project. Astonishing the reach of that Project. The murals, which you will see in this post, represent the four major areas of academic pursuit at the University - Agriculture, Industry, Arts and Home.

The connection that Massachusetts has with Manhattan is that Manhattan was "founded" by "Free Staters" from Massachusetts brought in under the auspices of the New England Immigrant Aid Company. Reach back to third grade history and you will recall that a Free Stater went into a territory that was about to become a state and fought or lobbied to have that state come in as a non-slave state. Kansas did come in as a non-slave holding state.

We liked being in Manhattan but time pressed so we loaded up and headed off to Denver. We hit our first bit of weather about 2 hours outside Denver. The I-70 was pelted with snow squalls and slowed traffic so we decided to take an alternate route into Denver which was not so great. In fact, it was kind of bad - limited visibility, snowy road, reduced speed, middle of nowhere, etc etc. Harry was driving and he did an amazing job of getting us to our port for the night just outside of Denver in Aurora at an Avid Hotel. Thanks Harry!

Now we are heading to a dog park in an interesting part of town in Denver. It's not even 9:00 a.m. but I've been up since 5:00. The thing about time change is that the dogs don't get it. My well trained pup wants to go out at 7:00 Eastern time, even as we sit here in the Mountain time zone. Can't wait till we get the Pacific time zone! We are off to Green River, Utah after the dog park. Wish us luck getting through the Rockies!Read more