Kansas has one huge advantage over other states. Most people who come here have terribly low expectations (“it’s flat”, “it’s boring”) so it is easy to be delighted by the little things.

Although we are not catching it on a great weather day Wilson Lakes is still clearly a very nice spot. It’s an irregular manmade puddle surrounded by rolling hills covered in delicate prairie vegetation. The campsites all have great views, and since virtually nobody is here, we were able to pick out a fine spot overlooking the water with total privacy.

There’s a marina in the park, so we did spot a boat going by towing a novice waterskiier, before everyone cleared out in the afternoon (it’s Sunday). On a sunny day this has to be a spectacular place to get in the water. The ranger station reports that a couple of weeks ago the water was 81 degrees.

About ten miles north on Rt 232 is the quiet little town of Lucas. It has one of those semi-dead downtowns that is so vacant you can stand in the middle of the road on Sunday and not worry about cars coming by for several minutes at a time. But it also has some of the most peculiar collections of folk art you will find in Kansas — or any other state.

One long-standing attraction is the Garden of Eden, actually a house of limestone carved to look like a log cabin. The garden is a collection of strange statuary made of concrete, created by Samuel P Dinsmoor decades ago. He’s still there — in the mortuary he built for himself.

We drove by but chose to visit the downtown Grass Roots Art Center instead. It’s an interesting place full of art by untrained artists who work in all sorts of media: stone, recycled junk, metal, pop bottles, even Barbie dolls. The tour takes about an hour and includes a backyard display of the local limestone architectural styles, and a side visit to the Deeble House. The Deeble House is filled with the work of one artist (the one who does the Barbie makeovers) and it’s interesting but strangely disturbing as well. Together with the Garden of Eden, these three places form the “Lucas Triangle”.

The other cultural aspect of the towns of Wilson and Lucas stems from the Czech heritage of many people who live here. Sadly, they don’t make much of it except at special occasions (and this Sunday in September is not one of those occasions). We would have liked to have found a Czech restaurant but the locals couldn’t point us to any place.

As I sit outside here at the picnic table (hoping for a better cellular signal), I can hear the crickets and other insects chirping and singing and humming. The tall grass prairie is alive with them, popping up and around all day and lending a melodic background to the campsite. All around us is tall grass, yellow flowers, the occasional moooo of beef cattle, and not much else. It’s very peaceful.

This post originally contained no photos because the local cellular network was not cooperating. I’ve found that when I’m on the so-called Verizon “Extended Network”, it’s code for “Barely functional network.” Generally uploads fail, which means I couldn’t post photos until I got to Denver.