From Topeka to Atchison, via the Santa Fe

Well, sort of.  We left Abilene this morning heading northeast.  At Topeka, we left I70 and bailed off onto Highway 4 and then Highway 59 toward Atchison, Kansas.  All along the route we followed the railroad line, with huge grain elevators on either side, shipping companies with docks along the railroad, and light manufacturing plants with access to the railroad line.  I should say that one business that is not "light" is the Goodyear distribution yard north of Topeka.  I've never seen so much rubber stacked that high in my entire life!  Great earthmoving equipment tires stacked 6 high and 10 rows deep and a building that must have thousands of tires inside.  The shipping docks go on for a 1/2 mile or so.  I wish I could have gotten a photo of it, but we were traveling at a good rate of speed and I couldn't get the phone up to the window in time!

The railroad line was at one time the Santa Fe, since the terminus of the Santa Fe cattle trail was in Council Grove, Kansas, just a few mile from Topeka.  Now Burlington Northern owns the line, but I still had to hum that old 40's tune about the "Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe".  Showing my age…..

Highway 59 runs across the east Kansas rangeland.

And, of course, along the railroad line.

As we got closer to Atchison, we continually saw references to Amelia Earhart, including the Amelia Earhart Memorial Bridge over the Missouri River.

We've since learned that Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas, and there is a museum there dedicated to her memory. As we crossed into Missouri, we saw a dredge working the channel in the Missouri River, a job that obviously needs to be done from time to time.

A few miles north and 167 miles from Abilene, KS, got us to the A-OK Campground and RV Park, a nice, large park just north of St. Joseph, MO.  True to form, as soon as we set up, we got antsy, and took off for downtown. We noticed immediately that St Joe is a bustling, vibrant city with a lot of history behind it.  It's a large city, compared to what we've seen over the last few days, but the downtown area is very old, with lots of multistory brick buildings.

The circular sign on the right advertises a restaurant named the Ground Round, where we stepped in for dinner.  Scrumptious food! Donna enjoyed the Sunday special pot roast dinner and pronounced it edible! I had another Sunday special, the Shepards Pie.  Also very edible!  We topped it off with cinnamon dippers with hot fudge, hot strawberry topping, and vanilla ice cream.  Quick, hide the scales!

St. Joe is a bucket list item for us because it was the place where the Pony Express began the long journey to Sacramento, California.  The route took the riders right through the town that we live in, and so we've seen the western end of the mail line, but not the east. We drove through the historical district this evening, locating several museums which we'll report on tomorrow since they were closed today.

One thing of note in Old Town is the home of Jesse James.

The home is now a private museum, but tales tell of Jesse James living for some time in this house just a few blocks from the Pony Express Station.

We have a few days here to coax some history out of St. Joseph, so we'll report more later.