Where Does The Steak Come From?

Tuesday night, June 28, 2016, we have traveled 850 miles since Urbana, Illinois. We crossed  the rolling prairie crossed with rivers, moved on to the flat of Kansas and then into the eastern Rockies of Colorado. Our Rocky, the Tacoma pulled up Ni La Veta Pass at 9400 feet today(did a great job) and a couple of days ago we were camped near the Mississippi. Tonight we are camping in a State Park just outside of the Great Sand Dunes National Park. Each night has been a very different experience. 

View from Garden City, Kansas Walmart Parking Lot (Rain finally stopped)

     Last night we ended a day of about 7 hours of driving by arriving at Garden City, Kansas which is a few miles from Dodge City. We were scheduled to stay at the Fair Grounds in Garden City but after asking a few people and driving around found that it was a grass field with the electricity being iffy. We had been watching dark clouds build all day and as we sat in that few minutes we noted a temperature drop of nearly 30 degrees from the 90’s into the 60’s. The wind began to blow almost sideways with dust scouring the side of truck and trailer. Then the rain started with a ferocity that matched the wind. The next park was 30 miles away. We drove down a town street till we could park into the wind to wait it out. We made a command decision. Earlier during the day, one of us had noticed a steak house was in Garden City. We decided have a salad and steak was the best way to wait out the storm and decide what next since it was nearly 8 o’clock by that time. It was raining so hard that we were soaked just walking from the parking lot to the restaurant. We joked during dinner that there is always the Walmart parking lot. Well, the paved parking lot looked darn good at that point. Didn’t even unhook just climbed in and went to bed. All was well till about 5 in the morning when a semi next to us started his generator. 

       Must make a comment on how we where able to compartmentalize the steak from the steer. For a least a 75 miles of highway, we had been seeing and smelling feedlots. Huge lots covering acres with cattle standing in dark colored evil smelling pens for mile after mile. The smell was so pervasive that we could smell it in the pick up when we stopped for gas. Garden City as we drove around had the largest Hispanic population we had seen anywhere since we left California. Suddenly it clicked when we drove by a Tyson plant with a line of cattle trucks that this was an area of “meat processing.” As has been widely written about, many Spanish speaking immigrants work in these slaughter houses since others shun the jobs. The feed lots where numerous for 200 miles through southwest Kansas and southeast Colorado. These were the ones we could see that lined Highway 50 that we drove a good part of Kansas, and Colorado to Las Animas. 

Abandoned Gas Station on Highway 10 on the way to Waldenburg, Colorado.  There was no town for 65 miles on this stretch of road.

Someone's use to be home on the same stretch of road. 

     Moving into the Colorado mountains we have finally left humidity behind us. As we climbed in elevation, it was so delightful to drop to 80 and be greeted with a thunderstorm as we came into camp.

Sangre de Cristo Mountains from our campsite. Bit different than Walmart camp site!

We just pulled into the campsite and ate our very late lunch (4:00 pm) and waited out the storm before we set up the Escape. We will be here for two nights with the quiet high desert with a view of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains from the San Luis Valley. No semis and only birds to wake us in the morning. Be well all!