Russell County

Day 16 - After our lovely evening at the Casino Queen we had a little sleep in and prepared for our next leg towards Denver.

Once we checked out the maps and possible points of interest it looked like there wasn't really a lot to see once leaving St Louis. We said ok, no plan let's just head west and do what takes our fancy so, off we headed west.

The next major city was of course Kansas City, and the motorway took us straight through the city centre and the place looked pretty run down and dilapidated so we just kept on moving. What was a big surprise was when we entered Topeka, further west and suddenly see these great big billboards stating welcome to the State Capital, Topeka. Never knew Topeka was actually the state capital of Kansas, always figured Kansas City would have been the capital.

Our original plan was to stop over at either Topeka or Salina but as we moved west these places didn't quite get us as far west as we wanted and we figured we'd just keep going and set Hays, Kansas as our night destination.

The city of Topeka though was a stunning city, the gardens and manicured public areas were such a pleasant change from the rundown areas in a lot of the towns and cities we had visited. Topeka is really a lovely city.

For some reason I decided I had a craving for some McDonalds French fries at a little town called Russell in Kansas. Thank goodness we did because when I then checked on available campsites of RV parks between here and Denver there was very little so just across the road was a tidy little RV park called the Triple J, sounds more like a Kansas cattle ranch but all the same we went and checked in. Fantastic people and guided us to a little site right across from the oil rig museum. Seems there was just as much oil in Kansas as there was in Texas back in the mid 1900's, the history of the place and the murals in the local bar, come pizza bar told an incredible story.

Well what do we do in a tiny little town called Russell in the middle of whoop whoop, go to the only bar around tacked onto the back of the local gas station. Check out our pictures.

We only went to have a beer but once we settled in and met the locals it turned out to be a great evening. Our Aussie accents and some strange sayings we had, got some of the locals quite intrigued and we learnt, from one of the locals (Russ from Russell) Google searches, that our Aussie saying of your chances are Buckley's and none comes from a gentleman many years ago called William Buckley who historically had the absolute worst luck, so hence the saying Buckley's and none now made sense. How's that, all the way to Kansas to find the true history of our saying, Buckley's and none.

I found this amazing beer called Boulevarde made locally in a Kansas City brewery that was astonishing. A beautiful wheat based beer that had the same foggy appearance as the famous Belgian Beer Hoegarden. Needless to say I had one or two or whatever.

In our pics you will find some snaps of pizza, rather ordinary to post such pics but this had to be the best pizza I have ever had anywhere in the world, and I've had plenty. The lovely Denise, pictured in our snaps, looked after us superbly and we had a fantastic evening in the little Kansa town of Russell.

Getting late so off to bed, night all.Read more