We stopped in Oakley, KS for a few days.

First I have to correct something in the last post although we were heading east when we stopped at the Kit Carson County Fair Grounds and toured the carousel we were still in Colorado!

Our first stop in Kansas was a town named Oakley and when I hear Oakley I usually think of Annie! But when we got to this Oakley we learned of so much more.

As you exit the interstate you arrive at the Welcome Center and with the friendly people working there and the exhibits inside it does not disappoint. On the outside it has a huge statue that pays tribute to the buffalo hunter of yore. This statue was huge and the detail was amazing.

Another really neat place we found was the Fick Fossil and History Museum which is free to tour had such a varied display of history and fossils. Evidently the area around Oakley is well known for the fossils that are so easily found in fact Vi Frick would use them in her artwork. One such piece of art that impressed me is pictured below. She actually used fossilized vertebrae as tree trunks!

The picture below depicts what it may have looked like when this area was covered by water and at the bottom is a very large fish skeleton that was discovered in the area. I bet that there are bigger ones just waiting to be found.

The museum also paid homage the the early settlers by depicting their way of life and the structures that they lived in.

They also had a section that contained early fire fighting equipment and the well preserved 1956 Ford Fire Engine below must of had some special meaning to the community.

While in the Oakley area we travelled south to a place called Monument Rock or as some people call them the Chalk Pyramids. Although this area is a naturally created area I have to admit it does look like it may have been carved out of chalk. I have no idea how formations like this can even begin to develop and I wonder how many more centuries until it erodes completely away. It is obvious that as more people come to visit places like this the quicker it may disappear. Since it is located on private property it could be closed at any time but hopefully people will follow the rules as posted below.

We made one more stop in the Oakley area that was pretty unusual and the sign below explains it way better than I can. I wonder what it looked like way back when these native Americans were living here.

Well that wraps up what we did on this leg of our adventure wonder where we will end up next.