Thursday (6/25)    Hello everyone!   Last night was very interesting as we had a SEVERE thunder storm around 9:30.   The wind blew like crazy and there was small hail.   We happen to be in the camp facility doing laundry when it hit.   Boy, were we glad we were not in the T@B.   I am sure that it was rocking pretty good.   It only lasted about 30 minutes but it sure was scary. No damage to the car or T@B.

We can't believe how quickly this trip is going.   We are busy every day and still cannot get to see all the things we would like to. This morning we went to the Hastings Museum of Natural and Cultural History.  We seem to be doing far more museums than we planned, but when they are so highly recommended, we feel we must see them.  Most of the museum that we are seeing are of local culture so each is different and interesting. This museum was no exception, it has great displays with informative local information.   One of the most interesting was the display on an item invented in Hastings - Kool-Aid.   It included the entire life of the inventor of Kool-Aid and a great display of Kool-Aid related items.   I never knew there was that much to know about Kool-Aid.

We then headed to Kansas stopping in Red Cloud, the childhood home of Pulitzer Prize winning author Willa Cather.  She wrote 12 books after leaving Red Cloud.  Many of the books were based on her experiences growing up in Red Cloud.   She often used the real names of people in the town, but gave them a character that was not at all like them.  In fact, many very nice people were portrayed in her books as bad people.   This did not set well with the people of Red Cloud.  Today, those people are gone and the town celebrates its famous author. 

From there we went to the Geographic Center of the USA - the center of the 48 states as determined by the government geodetic survey of 1898. It is a spot out in the middle of nowhere in Kansas.  When standing there, you can truly say you are in middle-America. It wasn't much but it is one of those things "you just have to do!"

We then headed to Abilene, KS for the evening.   We will be moving again in the morning because the things that we want to do are very spread out in this state.