Day Three - News Flash: Western Kansas is FLAT.

Woke up in Brother Chris's house and lounged around for a while, chatting and catching up and watching the dog obsess over the presence of a kitty behind the sun room couch.  

Hopeless.  We also finalized the decision to split up the drive to Colorado, and made plans to stop for the night in Burlington, CO just over the border.  Reservations booked, and people informed, John and Chris and I began moving the mahogany secretary downstairs from my brother's office.  In the process, we discovered some hidden drawers that Chris hadn't noticed before, and some very small items that had found their way to the small crannies of this old piece of furniture.  It used to be in regular use as my grandmother's desk.  We found some Boy Scout membership cards belonging to my uncles, an ancient band aid, a photo of our Grandpa Frank, some keys (including the one that locks the secretary), an most interestingly a many times folded and wadded up Bazooka Joe comic, no date.

After lunch and power naps, we packed up and left the kitties in peace.  Along our way that afternoon we passed a semi carrying two huge lengths of white material that looked like some bizarre experimental airplane wings.  Since we were close to the Cessna plant, where my brotha is an aerospace engineer incidentally, I figured that's what they were.  John posited that they were windmill arms.  Turns out he was right.

WIND FARM!  Taking advantage of the relentless Kansas wind, there is an enormous wind farm that stretches across the plains and fields.  Amazingly huge windmills gently spinning against the sky.  

Just after we got through gaping at the big ol' windmills, John and Punkus bonded in a very real way after the travel, extra treats and jouncing truck seat got to be too much for the girl and she decided that the best option would be to upchuck.  On John.  While he's driving.  Nice.  John handled it with grace and we pulled over for a quick clean up.  But they're closer now than they were before.  The rest of the afternoon pretty much looked like this....

We knew we were going to encounter some weather later on that evening, and the cloud formations were getting increasingly spectacular, especially out there were you can see for miles and miles on either side of I-70.  Towards the end of our day, about an hour from Burlington, we hit a rest stop and I was able to snag a photo.

After that stop, it got a little daunting.  South of I-70 one of the most spectacular lightning storms we have ever seen took up almost the entire horizon.  We saw several really incredible strikes and the light show itself was worth the sweaty palms on the steering wheel.  Fortunately, it all stayed south of us and we rolled into Burlington on schedule.  Piece of cake.  Then we all passed out.