--more random road trip photos--

I guess you would call this part two of my blog a few days ago entitled "the long way home". I had been to SW Missouri a few days ago and on my return trip home I literally took the long way by using some back roads including some I had never been on before. I have been on a mission of late to document ghost towns and disappearing Americana. And on this trip I never used a map and just followed road signs and I stopped ALOT.  All of the following photos were taken in KS and the first one here is at the border town of Baxter Springs. I have always liked this old gas station even though it is not fancy. I do remember when it was open for business.

And while I was parked in an empty parking lot that seemed to be part of a downtown municipal parking area of this town.....as I was returning to my car I noticed an old hydraulic car lift in the middle of it all......I was indeed parked on the site of an old gas station without first realizing it.....irony....

Not many miles down the road was Chetopa where I tool alot of photos and on the western edge of town was this charcoal factory. Have you ever seen one? Just imagine everything surrounding the place being covered in black soot like a coal mine-----I think that tv show "Dirtiest Jobs" needs to come and film there. I'm not trying to put it down but it was a VERY dirty place.

I didn't get very far at all (a common theme on this day) when I saw a tiny sign pointing to Bartlett which was a ghost town with only a grain storage business remaining open. I loved this old abandoned "Farmers Store" building with the loafer's bench out front.

Across the street sat the vacant post office....closed forever earlier this year with only a gas heating stove sitting inside that was left behind.

But my favorite item of interest in tiny Bartlett was the town jail which sits right on the north side of the post office. Crude and primitive with only a fold down steel bunk, you can see it was a cold and or hot place to be held. And what really seemed funny to me was thew fact that it was chained and locked up to keep folks OUT now instead of locking people inside........more irony.....

An abandoned school I found interesting at the ghost town of Valeda...

Again I didn't travel far before seeing the tiny town of Edna so I pulled off the main highway and entered the town and took some random shots from there.

Next photo is from tiny Dearing where I saw this cool old drive in hamburger joint that is still open.

Soon I was at Tyro which was a ghost town with a cool old building downtown where I took these photos...

Next up the bigger town of Caney offered another chance for me to picture a very patriotic drive in eatery that happened to be for sale but was still open for business

Same town I saw this very old home that was perhaps a boarding home or hotel in it's earlier life

And then the tiny village of Niotaze where this former general store still serves as the US Post Office for the handful of residents there...

 And a roadside photo at a crossroad intersection in the country where there were 3 of these old cabover work truck from the early 1940's.

 Later in the day I saw this cool old Air Force trainer that is now a Veteran's Memorial in a  park setting at a ghost town in the middle of Flint Hills region that was named Moline, KS. I was told that it has recently been moved here from Independence, KS where it was no longer wanted.

Not far away I was at the county seat town of Howard which was full of cool things to see including this old drive in that was busy with coffee drinkers on this cold winter day.

Then some scenes from Severy, another ghost town along my way...including this abandoned station that I just love

and this old packer roller that would have been used to pack the dirt streets and help make them a hard surface to drive on which was sitting behind an old city garage building

and yet another old jail from the frontier days of this ranch country where misbehaving cowboys would have been locked up and await their turn with the local judge...

And then my favorite ghost town of this region....Beaumont....where the 1800's Frisco railroad water tower still stands after supplying water to countless steam locomotives for decades...

This town is also known for it's grass landing strip that allows small plane pilots to taxi right up to the parking lot at the historic Beaumont hotel which is a good place to eat and serves as an "oasis on the prairie " if you will. This place has been bought and sold and remodeled many times over the years. I have seen it abandoned and neglected and all restored and somewhere in between over the lats 30 years or so.

An old church that reminded me of Christmas...

 A new highway by passes this town but close by is this abandoned service station that looks forlorn and lonely on the old road to nowhere....

and then some "ageless iron" I saw along the highway at a farm....

And by now it was getting late and I only took a few more photos that were not that interesting and darkness was fast approaching so I kept the pedal to the metal and drove the reaming 2 hours or so home as focused on the road ahead as possible. Waiting for me at home was supper of french toast and bacon with hot coffee.

And that was the end of my road trip from last week.....it was another good day indeed.....thanks for riding along. :-)