Our third farmers market in three days was in the Highland area of Denver, Colorado. It is a neighborhood farmers market featuring farms goods, prepared foods and crafts. Our nephew, Matthew Erley, lives in the Highland neighborhood and was anxious to show us their market.
After our two week void of farmers markets we are making up for lost markets. Longmont Farmers Market is our second farmers market in three days. Since we are staying at the Boulder County Fairgrounds in Longmont and that is where the farmers market is, it was an easy and pleasant walk to the market on Saturday morning.
The Boulder Farmers Market is a community gathering place offering not only fresh vegetables, fruits, dairy and other items yet also offering prepared foods and a grassy lawn to enjoy those foods while visiting. There was even a Balloon Man forming balloons into various objects for the children to wear and enjoy. After two weeks of no farmers market we were in Farmer Market Heaven!
Barking Dog Café in Lyons, Colorado was recommended to us as a must stop on the way to Rocky Mountain National Park. So we did. We were expecting much more than we found; Barking Dog is a coffee shop where locals enjoy coffee, reading and visiting. This is a no rush, relax, take in the atmosphere, kick back kinda place. No surprise when we ordered breakfast and waited about 30 minutes for our items. The food was not worth the 30 minute wait although we were able to sit outside and enjoy the morning. Mingling with the locals and other travelers Barking Dog attracts makes this worth the stop.
Lake Scott State Park was an oasis for us – it was our first cool weather and the lake was full of water. The park is not only a recreational haven it is also full of history. The park is a nature lover’s paradise with hiking, horseback and biking trails, swimming, and boating, along with just plain relaxing.
Kansas and prairies are almost synonymous. You ride and ride and every once in a while you see a farmhouse, a barn, a small community but the landscape barely changes in the South West part of the state – prairies and rolling hills. But then, there’s Monument Rocks. Also known as the Kansas Pyramids
or Chalk Pyramids, they were the first natural wonder to be inducted as a National Natural Landmark in Kansas by the Department of Interior on October 31, 1968. These outcroppings are on private land and the owner generously shares these wonders with the public. The rocks are limestone formations formed 80 million years ago when the area was an inland sea and reach a height of 70 feet.
Before there was “Women’s Lib”, back when the West was wild and a couple decades after Kansas became a state, Maria De Greer and her daughter, Ida Eastman, founded what is today Scott City, KS. De Greer, a widow from Chicago, was a writer, a feminist, a newspaper woman, and the first woman admitted to the Kansas Bar Association. Being a strong advocate of the Temperance Movement, she came to Kansas to build a “model” community with no taverns and no brothels. Continue reading
We found the Yellow Brick Road and it is in Liberal, Kansas. Liberal is recognized as the official home of Dorothy Gale and the Land of Oz. Dorothy’s house is a 1907 farmhouse donated to the Seward County Historical Society. It was carefully restored and furnished to resemble the house in the movie “The Wizard of Oz”.
Goodbye Texas – what a relief, and now we are in Liberal, Kansas. Don’t worry we have not changed our political afflication and we wondered whether the name was a political statement but found out it came about through hospitality and generosity. In the 1880s water was scarce in Southwest Kansas and what was available was often expensive. S. S. Rogers dug a well for his own use yet always allowed travelers access to his water. The travelers offered to pay, yet Rogers said “Water is always free here”. The story goes that most travelers replied “that’s mighty liberal of you” and the area become known as “the liberal well”.
One more day in Texas – hopefully! Texas is big and hot and we are working our way out of it. For our last night we stopped at the Ole Town Cotton Gin and RV Park in Goodlett, TX.
