We left about noon, and it was already hot, hot. Of course, that doesn't make much difference in an airconditioned car, but still.... And we didn't spend quite all of our time in the car. In fact, we got out of it several times. We went south on US75 until we got to US56 going west, then we went west for a while. One of the smaller towns that we went through was unique, in that it had an extremely wide downtown area paved with brick. Somewhere in there was a sign pointing out the what was US56 went in a southerly direction, and that we were not on KS33. We were about five miles out of the twon before I noticed this, but since we were still going in a westerly direction, we went with the flow, and pretty soon we found a road going south and we hit US56 again. We stopped to get gas at Council Grove, a rather pleasant little town, and before heading south on US177 (or amybe it's KS177), we saw a little park, still in the town, and we decided to stope there. It was the Neosho RiverView park. The Neosho river is one that wanders into SE Kansas, where Karen grew up. So, we started on the scenic route, and it was fairly scenic. We stopped at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve(http://www.nps.gov/tapr/) and got out of the car to a 103F temp... we went into a very large barn that was sparsely populated with artifacts but wasn't too awfully hot because of the strategically located fans. We stayed and watched about a fifteen-minute video, then went up to the old farm house/gift shoppe and kinda looked around there briefly before heading back to the car. Shortly after we hit the road, I saw a scene that gave me a flashback to a time when I was maybe five or six and living on a farm near Kremlin, OK. What I saw was simply a pond with some cows... the flashback was of a warm summer day when the whole family was swimming in a pond. Dad had driven us to the pond in the station wagon, a woodie, I think it was, and while we were swimming a big black bull decided he didn't like us being there. I just remember mainly being in the car and the bull pushing on the front of it, I think that we all thought the bull was going to push the car into the pond and drown us all. I don't remember what made him go away, but I do remember another encounter with the same bull, on a more individualized basis, where I had to put a fence between him and me rather rapidly. Next was Strong City, home to two National Cowboy Hall of Famers and on to Cottonwood Falls, which has the oldest remaining jail in Kansas, so it said. I saw a sign pointing west as we came into town, *Chase County State Fishing Lake*. So we went west until we got to the turnoff. It was a pleasant little lake, fairly good-sized but not huge, I would like to go back some day in my little bass boat and see it there are any bass in it.... We kept heading south until we came to a turnpike entrance, at which point I got out a map. We really didn't know what to do at this point, but I saw Hutchison out of the corner of my eye and remembered that I'd always wanted to go to the Kansas Cosmosphere (http://cosmos.com) so I looked for a route... it looked like we'd have to go south to El Dorado to get there. Well, south took us to Admire, and the first sign that I saw when we hit Admire was "Newton via Co Road" so we headed west on this un-named but very well-maintained blacktop... two-lane, of course, but with virtually no traffic. Well, we drove and drove past irrigated fields and unirrigated pasture... and on every corner, usually every mile, was a sign with directions on how to get to the nearest Mennonite church. Anyways, we get to Newton and find that they've torn up most of the town building new roads. We see a sign on the detour for a Braum's, and decide that we're hungry. The detour takes us onto a street that I immediately recognise from 20 years ago when I was delivering chemistry to the hospital here... another deja Vu, twice in one day! Anyway, we found the restaurant and had a fine, cheap meal and I asked for directions on how to get to the highway. The first waitress was dumbfounded by the question, as if why would anyone want to leave Newton, KS? An older, evidently more worldly woman gave me good directions... which I almost blew. I was supposed to turn south on Kansas, but there was a cop arresting someone right there, and I rubbernecked almost enough to miss the turn. As it happens, I made an awkward, high-speed turn that would have gotten me arrested for inattentive driving had the cop been paying attention and been so inclined. I got lucky. So, on to Hutch! And the Kansas Cosmosphere. An unimposing structure initially, with two ICBMs standing guard. We decided to go inside, just to make sure that it was going to be open on Sunday. Yep, it was. We decided to look at all of the free parts and come back at noon on Sunday when it re-opened. The free part was pretty impressive, but they also had a planetarium show and an IMAX Dome Theater which were part of the all-day pass. We decided that we were tired, and loeft about 19:30 to find a motel. Motel 8. Cheap, with a good air conditioner and cable TV, gotta get that CNN fix! And Karen got hung up on the Miner Miracle going on. Being the skeptic, I figgered that they were all dead, and I was quite happy to be proven wrong. Mark it down, it doesn't happen very often. But anyhoo... that just kept going on and on, so Karen went to sleep, and so did I, after much tossing and turning.