June 5, 2026

The road to Walsenburg, CO felt really long today. I had it my silly brain it was only 240 miles. Google Maps insisted it was 283, and Apple Maps said about 290. It was 315 miles with not very much of the things we take for granted at home. Fuel stops are 30 or more miles apart and you can’t be very fussy. There’s usually a convenience store attached with restrooms, snacks and cold drinks, though not often with a place to sit. We enjoyed our lunchtime peanuts and cold drinks leaning on an ice cream freezer next to the register. We got some looks and a couple of nibbles of conversation but that’s all.

We are again struck by how vast and beautiful our country is. Our route took us mostly on US 160, a nicely maintained two lane road. If you look at a map, you’ll see that the road is straight as an arrow until you meet a junction where you make a turn (or not) and drive straight again. There is precious little traffic except the occasional grain truck, oil/gas carrier and cattle truck.

Grain, energy and ranching pretty much describes the economy we saw here. Huge fields (like miles long) are planted with corn, wheat, soy and alfalfa. Great irrigation booms are connected to substantial pumps that draw water from the aquifer and turn semi arid land a vibrant green. Gas and oil wells abound as do huge solar and wind farms that take advantage of the open ground and prevailing winds. We passed miles of aromatic feed lots where cattle are fattened then trucked to market.

What we didn’t see a lot of were houses and people. Many small towns we rode through had seen better days. Empty and closed stores tell a tale of relocation, maybe due to a search for paying work elsewhere. It seems a lot of folks in rural west Kansas and southeastern Colorado are just getting by. Which is a shame. We depend on farms and farmers to feed our 340 million people. Just saying.

Early on today we stopped at a huge grain co-op that loads hopper rail cars some of which were already on the siding, maybe waiting to be filled. This scene was repeated dozens of times today. Again, the scale of food production beggars the imagination.

What also caught our attention was a 50’ tower with a tornado warning siren. The tower had its own junction box and transformer. Tornados are serious business here.