Raod Trip - KS

After living in thirteen states, I didn't think I could be surprised by the United States.  Kansas is one flat flat flat place.  After TX, we headed north for Dodge City KS to see Boot Hill.  Driving, we passed mile after mile of corn fields, I wondered why more people don't fall asleep at the wheel.  It amazes me how much of our country is devoted to growing corn by big corporations.  In 1996 we grew old fashioned corn from corn seeds.  By 2011, 72% of corn and a whopping 96% of soybeans grown are genetically modified.

In1850 64% of our population farmed on an average of 203 acres of land.  By 1990 just 2.6% of Americans were farmers; the average farm is now 461 acres.  In the year 2000 over 72 million acres were dedicated to growing 10 billion bushels (of the 23 billion bushel world crop) of corn.  80% of this crop is used for animal feed (livestock, poultry or fish).

It takes approximately 16 lbs. of grain to make one lb. of beef, or 72 lbs of grain to make a 72 oz. steak. . .

It's hard to know what to do with this information.  I've read these numbers before,  but seeing the steak bonanza in Armadillo then driving past so much corn really brought home the idea that something is very wrong with what we eat.

In keeping with the theme of this post, Dodge City KS was interesting; I love seeing the relics of another time, tiny dresses for tightly corseted women, old rifles used to gun down outlaws, etc.  The town was founded in 1872 and quickly became the world's largest shipping point for longhorn cattle.

Road Trip - TX

It's been a long time since I've run, but it's still in the front of my tiny rat brain.  Plantar Fasciitis does not come with a quick fix and there are several camps on how to best fix it.  I'm going with the no shoes, reacquaint myself with my fascia policy, which brings me to the road trip.  Five days ago, we packed the Prius (with some things we didn't actually need in retrospect) and headed out to see the midwest (more on that later).  Sitting in a car for hours a day, while good for draining the overactive brain, it hard on the body.  By last evening, day five, my back and legs were so tight I felt 20 years older.  My feet feel like a ran 5 miles, without the fun of having had a good run!  It's not realistic that I'll be able to do any good stretching.  Why oh why didn't I bring the Active Isolated Stretching book?  It was in the backpack but I pulled it out at the last minute.  I should have left the hatchet at home and brought the book. . .

Our first stop was in Amarillo (fondly referred to as Armadillo) for a meal at the Big Texas Steak House.  If you can eat a 72 oz. steak in an hour, it's free.  The fellow who had taken up the gauntlet that evening was a very large Hispanic fellow whose wife and children seemed proud but concerned by his undertaking.  What does a family do while waiting for husband/dad eat a disgustingly large amount of food for one hour?  You can only take so many photos of the slowly disappearing pile of beef . . .

This is a good example of what is wrong with our culture, more on that later.

The next morning we went to Cavendar's for a new pair of boots (or two, I love Old Gringos and my husband), an Armadillo tradition!  After that we saw Cadillac Ranch, a quirky art installation in the middle of a cow pasture just west of the city.  Picture the majesty of a row of old junker Cadillac cars, buried 1/3 of the way into the ground, in a line, at an angle.  People are welcome to spray paint them for posterity or until the next trigger finger with a can of day-glow orange shows up.  I love this kind of art.  Photos pending. . .

Next we headed north through the panhandle of Texas (with a speeding ticket warning from a very nice young Texas State Patrolman) and kept heading north through western Oklahoma and into Kansas.  It's so very easy to hit the accelerator in the wide open space.