Today we arrived in our westernmost state, but first we started with a quick photo stop at one of our roadside wonders in Kansas.
Goodland, in western Kansas has the World's Largest Easel (or at least the largest along a U.S. Interstate). It's 80 feet tall, and atop it rests a 32x24-foot representation of one of Van Gogh's "Sunflower" paintings.
Kansas is the "Sunflower State," and Goodland is at the center of the local sunflower industry, so it makes sense. It made enough sense to the trade group, Sunflowers USA, that when Canadian artist Cameron Cross pitched them the idea in 2000, they raised the $150K necessary to build the thing.
Once in Colorado, we walked around the Paint Mines Interpretive Park which had its beginnings 55 million years ago when it was still a tropical hardwood forest.
The forest and ancient soils were later covered by white sandstone of uplifted and later eroded Pikes Peak Granite.
Its stone and clay layers have been weathered by wind and rain to produce the badlands, breaks, gullies and hoodoos.
Tessa and a hoodoo.
I love the wild flowers you find in the desert. Such beauty growing in such harsh conditions.