The sun rises over a farmstead near Minneola that has been in Angie's family for decades.
MINNEOLA, KANSAS
It’s April 3
Finally, March, this month from hell, is over.
No, it wasn’t hell, it just seemed like it at times. Some people, in the midst of this COVID-19 pandemic, are actually going through hell with their health and finances. We hope that if you stop by Third Quarter Nomads you can have a break from the overwhelming news of the pandemic.
We moved on after a few weeks of helping our family members through some challenges, and we were grateful they weren’t life-threatening issues.
Maya with her repaired knee, Jana with her postponed wedding. Angie, still on the mend from her January 30 ankle surgery. As much as we would have liked to stay near Jana’s home, we had to think about finances and the risk of exposure near the urban area. The folks at Rutlader Outpost RV Park graciously gave us a refund for our early departure, so we headed west three weeks earlier than planned.
Our weather was almost perfect for the cross-Kansas haul from Louisburg to Minneola on Sunday. The westward climb on the 330-mile drive was revealed in our reduced gas mileage. Throw in the previous 520-mile round trip to Lincoln for unavoidable dental work – a 30 minute crown installation – and we’ve put on about nearly 900 miles since last Thursday. Enough driving!
The Nebraska trip was an adventure. We got to see Angie’s mother and also Maya, who spent an evening with us. This social distancing is tricky. When you are going to be away for who knows how long, you want to give your daughter or mother a hug. BUT, keep your distance.
The farm
Minneola and the farm mean a lot to my wife and her family. It’s the childhood home of Angie’s mother Connie and her siblings, Erma and Charlie. They grew up in a small house on the farm and like many of their generation they moved away to start their lives. Still Minneola was home.
We can watch the sun rise over the family farmstead to our east. Angie nailed a sunrise silhouette photograph Thursday morning.
Angie spent her childhood summers here, so this place is special. Over the holidays, we rented a house near Hutchinson, 129 miles to the east, so our family could all meet at a central location. And when you are that close to Minneola, you go to Minneola. After the holidays, we decided the time was right to spend a couple spring months at the farm, and Angie’s cousins said they didn’t mind.
A side note about “Hutch”, the birthplace of Jana, way back in 1991. Hutchinson was home to our young family when I cut my reporting teeth at the Hutchinson News. For much of my time at the Hutch News, my job was finding news in our territory of 40 southwest Kansas counties.
The landscape
Minneola’s water tower and grain elevator peek over the earth’s curvature and the green wheat field to our south. We are on the north side of Zane Road, which divides Clark County on the south and Ford County on the north. Two miles north of us is aptly named Windy Road.
Kansas is one of those Great Plains states with a map of rectangular counties. Clark County, carved out of the original Ford County, is 960 square miles of prairie and wheat fields and pastureland along the Oklahoma border, with four counties separating it from the Colorado border to the west. There’s still some oil here, and cotton farming has begun to emerge. The biggest change is the emergence of hundreds of wind turbines.
Minneola is one of the three towns in Clark County, along with Ashland, the county seat, in the southeast, and Engelwood in the southwest. I’m told that the courthouse has a wall with a map showing all of the towns, including the ghost towns, so there will be much to explore. Dodge City is a quick 20 minute drive north.
We’ve been here five days now. On day two, we went to Dodge City so Angie could get a doctor’s OK for ankle rehab therapy at the local clinic in Minneola. Now we know we’re going to be here until mid-May. We stocked up at the Dillon’s store in Dodge, being very careful about the 6-foot separation. Like everyone else, we’re taking this situation day-to-day. We’re stocked up and isolated as we could be.
It’s just us and the wind and spring coming on a little at a time. Our first two weeks are going to be quarantine, but really, during our time in Louisburg, starting three weeks ago, we were distancing and isolating as much as we could.
There are good signs: No one around us has gotten sick that we know of, and we’re healthy.
The last time we looked ahead at more than a month without moving it was June and we were in the Black Hills, and then we were working and before we knew it, we were focusing on back surgery for Angie, with the ensuing recovery. The doctor’s orders after her back surgery were “Walk, walk walk.” But how do you do that with a bum ankle? I have enjoyed my walks, but I’m looking forward to having Angie walk with me.
We are looking forward to excursions across the canyon country. Our favorite place is the Big Basin, a big piece of nowhere about 25 miles from here, a geological wonder with a herd of bison.
We can do a lot of things for the next month and a half, and when we need a break, we come back to the family farm, to sit by the pond and listen to Meadowlarks and house finches.
We aren’t picking up any TV stations on the antenna, but who needs TV? We have wide open skies. We have a pond next to us, killdeer chirping around, a prairie dog town north of the pond with a couple burrowing owls to watch. Every morning so far, we’ve had meadowlarks singing their hearts out, and house finches like to flit among the rows of pines that Bob planted 10 years ago.
Did I mention the wind? We’ve had sustained wind above 15 mph since arrived, with the maximum winds at 20 to 30 mph each day. It wasn’t too bad when we got up to 70 degrees, but now that the wind turned out of the north at 20 mph, we know winter isn’t that far behind us. Next week will be in the 70s and we’ll quit whining. It’s time to get the bicycle going and experience the landscape.
Wrapping up, we want to thank Jana for sharing our website on social media, and we invite you to do the same. Tell friends about us, and subscribe at the bottom of the page. Subscribers receive an email when there is new material at TQN.
Until next time, be careful out there and stay healthy. We’re all in this together.
LP
The entry of the Bloom School, Bloom, Kansas is all that remains of the old school that was torn down decades ago. Bloom is along U.S. 54 in Ford County, Kansas.
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