Gettin' the heck into Dodge

The rolling hills and the roller coaster dirt farm roads that I enjoyed walking westward flattened out into the Great Plains of the American west... not quite as flat as the great Pampas of Argentina, the flatness still makes for rather visually unexciting walking.  It frees up more time to look at the quick orange-striped little snakes in the grass.

The grain elevators that pop up out of the wheat fields are visible for 10 miles or more and provide the focal points of interest... three or four hours from the time I spot one to the time I can sit in its noisy shade for a rest.

The pilgrimage is going great and I passed the halfway point in Great Bend, where I spent the night with some riotous and indulgent nuns at the mother house of the Dominican Sisters of Peace.  Words like 'soaking tub' sound fabulous to any weary pilgrim, without a doubt, but when the soaking tub is nearly the size of a lap pool, soaking is more like restful floating... pretty heavenly.

Whoever kindly found the controls to the wind and turned it down a bit seems to have accidentally elbowed the heat knob and sent a few days soaring into the upper 90s.  In early May? Now, now... it might drive a winter pilgrim to whine a little, but the local folks have been ready with some lemonade and a chance to sit in the shade a while.

People are kind and good.  Finding places to sleep continues to be fun, safe, and comfortable.  Pilgriming across America is a blast, though not many have heard of the Santuario de Chimayo.