Onwards into Kansas today. The mountains are behind us  - evidenced by the observation that highway rest-stops now have air-conditioning instead of heaters.

Elevations continue to fall and the land flattens out around us. In one dusty town we stop to snap a picture of a building built of fossilized wood in 1933, some 150 million years old. But we have no time to stop to see the world's largest hand-dug well, the Agricultural Hall of Fame, or the Kansas Barbed Wire museum.

The vast open-range cattle ranches of the high desert have given way to feed lots and agriculture. 

Stern signs at the entrance to highways proclaim: No animals - led, ridden or driven.

Long central-pivot sprinkler systems slowly irrigate the radius of giant circular fields for big agribusiness. 

Small towns are regularly spaced about every ten miles, visible in advance by their tall grain silos and water storage towers.

We plunge back onto Interstate 70 and speed towards Hannibal, Missouri - home of Mark Twain, and our friends Mike and Melissa (colesnaps.com) who moved here about four years ago as part of an artist relocation program. They are restoring a large church (originally a Knights of Pithias lodge) for studio space, and living in the house next door. We even catch a glimpse of Mark Twain officiating at a civic ceremony of some kind.