Sharp's Travels

We had a much laid back morning. I told Gay it was nice to just sit, drink my coffee, rock back and forth and gaze out the window and watch the trees blow! I fixed waffles this morning and used the maple syrup Kenny & Eileen gave us. It was sure good. We walked some of the streets of town to get in our exercise, took our showers and then headed out to do some geo caching. There is a little town about 36 miles from here called Gaylord so of course we had to go there. Gay needed his picture taken by the town sign.

The first find was hidden in a neat container attached to a tree to look like a bird feeder. The bottom was open and you needed to pull what looked like the perch out to release the container. The second find was among some cement blocks. One of the geo caches also made note of just coming from Cawker City, the home of the biggest ball of twine. Of course we thought we needed to go there too.

Frank Stoeber started his ball of twine on his farm in 1953. By 1957 it weighed 5,000 pounds, stood 8 feet high, and had 1,175,180 feet of twine on it. Stoeber gave the ball to Cawker City. Now it weighs nearly 18,000 ponds and has more than 7 million feet of twine on it. Each year the Twine-a-Thon is held in August and so the ball never stops growing.

We visited an antique store there and the gal told us we should go see the Garden of Eden, cabin home, and the Grassroots Art Center in Lucas, and so off we went!

Samuel Dinsmor, a retired schoolteacher, Civil War Veteran, farmer and politician, began building the Garden of Eden and Cabin Home in 1907 at the age of 64. For 22 years he fashioned 113 tons of cement and many tons of limestone into his unique “log” cabin. It had 11-rooms. It is built of limestone logs, the native post rock limestone traditionally used for fences, most of which run the cabin’s full length.

There were 150 sculptures in the outside garden, including the 40 foot tall limestone log mausoleum for himself and his first wife. He was laid to rest in his handmade, glass-topped concrete coffin, which we visited.

It was all really a site to see.

Next in Lucas came the Grassroots Art Center. All the pieces there were made by self-taught artist working outside the academic structure of fine art and beyond the cultural traditions of folk art. The exhibit emphasizes the architectural, historical, and cultural value of post rock limestone and incorporates at one place a series of examples of construction and design, showing the many uses of the stone from the most utilitarian to the ornate and whimsical.

They also had barbed wire designs and pop-tops from cans that were put together to create a motorcycle, car and clothing.

One more stop there in Lucas took us to the Flying Pig gallery. Things there were very ornate. Nothing I would want to have around my house!

It was all different, some weird and everything was very interesting to say the least.

We wound through a lot of countryside today. Miles of stone fence posts stand tribute to the early settlers. They solved their fencing problems on the treeless plains by quarrying rock to use as posts. The stone posts have become a trade mark around here.

It was a lovely day. We got back to our 5th wheel around 6:30 and found out we have a neighbor. He’s been told they have to be out of their 5th wheel by 6:30am tomorrow morning so we will be making it an early night.

For pictures of the day click on photos and then on Memorial Day 2007

For additional information check out the following web sites:
www.garden-of-eden-lucas-kansas.com
www.grassrootsart.net