THREE SUMMITS: #2, MOUNT SUNFLOWER IN KANSAS

October 17, 2020

We had a 2.5-hour drive to our next high point, Mount Sunflower in Kansas, so we got off to a relatively early start.  Here we go again--these signs were everywhere.

It didn't take us long to leave the paved streets behind. These roads are essentially farm access roads, but they are well-maintained and Bob drove at a pretty good clip on the crunchy gravel.

He wasn't driving so fast that he missed that lump in the road in the picture below, however. Can you see it?

One of us gets excited when she unexpectedly runs across an ice cream parlor or an art museum, The other one of us gets positively giddy when he unexpectedly finds a snake in the road.

And this wasn't just any ol' snake. Nope, it was a prairie rattlesnake, a species Bob had never seen before.

Half an hour and a thousand photos later, we were back on the road.

We didn't always have GPS, so we weren't always quite sure if we were indeed on the road to Oz Mount Sunflower, so seeing signs like this was both reassuring and discouraging. (Still six miles to go?)

It's not like the scenery changed between the six-mile marker and the one-mile marker. This is not the kind of drive where you want to pull over for photos a lot. (Unless there is a snake, of course.)

Yahoo! The yellow brick road brown dirt road actually does lead to Oz Mount Sunflower!

So enticing, right? Who could resist this magnificent entrance?

What is that at the base of the sunflowers?

You know, Kansas, you really are pretty easy to love.

This, folks, this is Mount Sunflower, the highest natural point in the state of Kansas. At a whopping 4,039 feet (Like Nebraska's Panorama Point, it is on the rising slopes that lead to the Rockies and less than a half a mile from the Colorado border), this site reigns over the rest of the state.  Majestic, isn't it?

And here is the monument to this auspicious spot. Even the sky seems to be honoring it.

It is a quirky display, and I think its creators intentionally made it that way, which makes it even more fun.

The latitude and longitude of Mount Sunflower, just in case you wanted to know:

I got a kick out of the signboards that show the direction and distance to a diverse set of cities, from Kit Carson, Colorado (59 miles away), to Stockholm, Sweden (4838 miles away).

We were looking forward to checking out the sign-in box. It looked very promising--and check out the clouds pointing their fingers at the mailbox! What is inside?

It definitely did not disappoint!

The sign-in book suggested that visitors leave a beer for the owner. 

My favorite thing at the site was this Little Free Library, part of "the world's largest book-sharing movement." (See this website for more information.) I especially love that the box was built by the local high school industrial arts class. What an awesome teacher! Kudos to Bruce Bolen and his students!

If you like Tom Clancy, this is your box--at least it was the day we were there. It is probably full of different books now.

The box sits on a picnic table under a protective roof and is surrounded by protective fencing (so the antelope and buffalo don't damage it?).

I make fun of my husband for his penchant for dirt roads and obscure sites, but this stop was seriously a blast. I love how conscious of its own obscurity the place felt. There was also some true artisanship here--the creative use of materials to create the wide variety of sunflowers and the lovely Little Library box. The whimsy of the signposts was also fun.  I loved it all.

But if you want to see if for yourself, be prepared for miles and miles and miles of dirt roads.