Sept. 5, 2010

I started this morning at about 8:30.  I headed toward downtown Independence to take in Harry and Bess Truman's home, a very gracious victorian in a lovely neighborhood on the southeast corner of Truman Rd. and Delaware St..  The National Park Service takes care of three homes in addition to the Truman's.  Just across the street from their home, on Delaware St., is the Noland home, Harry Truman's aunt and uncle's.  (Their location is one of the reasons Truman and Bess fell in love.  He went into town to visit his favorite cousins, the Nolands, and Bess was right across the street.  Eventually, Bess became the reason he went to see the Noland cousins!)  The other two homes sit behind Harry and Bess's house on Truman Rd.  These two homes belonged to Bess's brothers. When they married, they built the houses; often all of the families would have dinner together.

When Harry and Bess returned to this home after the presidency, they had very little money.  Not until 1968 did presidents receive a pension according to the park ranger ... he said Lyndon Johnson saw to that being set up.  Neither was there any secret service detail until later in his retirement.  Harry really didn't mind though.  Apparently he mowed and took care of the yard.  They made their own breakfast and lunch; Harry even nailed down the linoleum flooring that had torn and come unglued.  At night the two of them read in a room right off of the dining room.  There are beautiful portraits of Margaret (in the front hall), Bess (in the drawing room to the left of the foyer), and Harry (in the room to the right of the foyer).  Harry woke early each day, walked downstairs to the hall, pulled the light cord that extended to the second floor in order to turn the light off, turned a downstairs light on so that he could check the thermometer/barometer, put on his coat and fedora if it was cold, and went out for a 2-mile constitutional.  When he returned, he had breakfast with Bess.  I wish I could have taken interior photos, but that wasn't allowed so I only have a few of the outside.

Truman Home

Noland Home

Bess's brothers' homes ... H & B's home >

After the Truman tour, I headed for Kansas, and as I continued driving toward Hays, my destination for the day, I was conscious of going up.  It seemed that with each slope I would ascend, I might do a little descent, but then I would go up again.  I don't know what the elevation of Hays is, but last night I was looking up the elevation of Kansas City (around 800 feet) and the elevation of Denver, which we all know is the Mile High City; that's a lot of climbing!  But the landscape is awesome.  I'd thought it would be much flatter, but it actually rolls beautifully.  The fields and grazing pastures are immense, and you can see forever.

As I was driving, I was listening to Undaunted Courage, and the descriptions given of the Dakotas and Montana sound similar to this.  Lewis speculated that the reason there were few trees was because the Indians burned the grasses every year in order to maintain grass for buffalo.  I wonder if that might have been true here, too.  Another thing that struck me was the wind (literally as well as speculatively).  I stopped along the way to make a pb and j for lunch, and I encountered a wind that I literally had to brace myself against in order not to be pushed around.  It blew my metal camp plate right off the table!  True, I was in a "wind field" (to the tune of about 100 of them over a pretty large area), but it was crazy!  It was even rocking a trash can back and forth (the can was suspended).  Even here in Hays it is windy, and very dry.  When I made my sandwich, the bread was starting to dry out by the time I'd walked 150 yards to the picnic table, and this afternoon, after arriving here in Hays, I washed out a spot on my swim cover-up before I went to the pool; by the time I returned to the motel room (about 1 1/2 hours later) it was dry.  I took a video of the wind, but I can't figure out how to get it into this blog, so I'm just adding a "vista" shot.

 Isn't this a big sky?

One last thing: I have found a grocery in Hays!  Yippee!  The motel I am in has a microwave in the room so I went hunting for food.  Poor L & C had to shoot their food; all I had to do was stop at the grocery, buy a Stouffer's lasagne, put together a nice little salad from their salad bar, and pay for it with my credit card, getting a discount from my Safeway card; now what could be easier than that?  I consumed just the normal number of calories I need to keep going (sort of like the Corps of Discovery, only they needed about 6,000 calories to my 1200.)  Oh, and then I filled up my 6-horse power vehicle, getting another discount with my Safeway card, so that tomorrow morning I can ride off with  the sun at my back, pushing me onward toward the west.  Yi-ha!