I ended up getting into Boulder a little late last night, so yesterday’s trip is going to be recounted this morning. Having said that, there’s not much to tell; it turns out Kansas City to Boulder is one of the most desolate parts of the United States I’ve ever seen.

  I started out with a brief walk in Shawnee Mission Park just outside of Kansas City, which was actually pretty pleasant; most of the trees were still leafless, but there were a few buds and blooms coming up here and there, and the weather (for once) was gorgeous. There are a lot of nice walking trails around that area, and it’s almost a shame I had to get going to soon; I would have liked to spend a bit longer checking it all out.

  Around 10:00 AM, though, it was time to go, so I hit I70 and headed west. And west. And west. For over 500 miles, there’s literally nothing but grass, fields and grain silos. I did manage to find an old windmill (there are some new, fancy-ass windmills too, blighting the landscape) to take pictures of, but I’m actually kicking myself because there were at least two or three photo opportunities along the highway that I didn’t stop for. I was just a little too nervous about pulling over on the side of the highway and hopping a fence to take pictures of a graveyard and an abandoned farmhouse, although in hindsight I really, really should have.

In the end, there wasn’t much else to relate; I passed into Colorado around 3:00 PM, stopped to take a picture, and didn’t stop again until I hit Boulder. Below are what photos I was able to get, but I promise more will come as I travel west into the canyon lands!

Side note, I finally picked up a GPS tagger for my Nikon camera, so I’ll be able to track where I’ve been with better accuracy from now on. Yay!

This is what the midwest is made out of.

Welcome to Colorado!