There's just no avoiding it. Kansas just doesn't have the sort of mind-boggling natural features that other states do. Except mind-bogglingly empty and flat expanses of nothing but farms and horizon. Kind of like this, but 3D:
The only natural monuments we seem to have are pretty poor excuses:
In my opinion, the only thing that saves us is this, one of the stranger monuments in Kansas:
This is from the "Garden of Eden" in Lucas, Kansas. The sculptor was a civil war vet who got creative in his 60's and began building some very interesting statues like the one above, depicting various attacks on various people, made out of concrete. He got procreative at 80, having two children with his 20 year old wife.
I visited all these places today, after staying at Scott Lake, which wasn't bad. I was able to get a camp site right next to the water, without any neighbors but the bullfrogs and fireflies.
It was nice until about 2 in the morning, when a bunch of drunken kids made a ruckus (I'm getting old, I know) nearby for about a half hour and woke me up.
This morning I awoke to another unpleasant surprise - my front left tire was completely flat. I found out later I had run over a nail the night before. Luckily a local mailman had an air compressor and plugs, and I was able to get back on the road without much trouble.
And so now I'm in Wichita, staying with my dad. This weekend I'm going to see my cousin initiated into a monastery, then I'll go to Lawrence next Monday...