Scenic Views on the Kansas Plains

Plain and Simple View

On our recent trip to Sterling College to watch a spring football game, we stopped along the way in Kansas for a few moments, and we had some great views.

I probably should have called this post “Rest Area in Kansas”, because that is where we stopped. We found this nice scene at a highway rest area. But that does not sound quite that glamorous for a post title. So instead, I just pointed out the Kansas plains in the title.

No matter what it was, the view was beautiful with the rolling Kansas plains in the background. The natural grassland view is much different from our natural woodland view here at home. In the wilderness here, we have trees. But in the wilderness there, they have grass. Pretty cool!

Here We Are

When we find a nice scene like this, we do what all normal people do in these situations. We take family photos. You mean everyone does not do that, especially at a rest area? Just another way of how we are not quite like everyone else, I guess.

Anyway, here are Laura and Jaylin with that nice Kansas scene behind them. Laura remarked that it was a Toy Story sky, and she was right. It was also quite windy, but you can’t tell that from a still photo.

After that previous photo, Jaylin took this photo of Laura and me in the same spot. You can’t tell it, but we were standing on a short wall at the edge of the walkway near the restrooms. That got us into the scene even better.

And we were all wearing our Sterling blue gear as we were headed straight to the football game.

More Views

Because one photo is never enough, here are two more views. For this first one, I liked the winding concrete path. I really could not decide whether I liked this one better, or whether I liked the first photo in this post better. So instead of dragging them out into multiple posts of similar photos, I included both of them here.

All of these photos were taken just minutes apart, because we were needing to get back on the road. But the changes in the clouds in that short time period might give you some idea of how strong the wind was blowing.

This view is just enough different from the previous ones to include it, too. As you can see, the trees had not started to grow their leaves yet. Except of course for the pine trees, which are ever green.

Also, it is difficult to see on the above photo, but there is something interesting on the horizon. Here is a detail view:

All of those stick-looking things are wind turbines. Lots and lots of wind turbines! And they are much larger than they look in this photo, too. We don’t see many wind turbinesin the woodland areas around here, but it definitely makes sense to have them on the grassland plains. As the wind felt like it was about to blow us away, we could definitely see that having wind turbines helps with power generation. Just another cool thing that impresses those of us who are easily impressed.

And with that, we were back on the road, thankful that we had gotten to see a little more of God’s beautiful creation.

Bible Verse

Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses. - Psalm 135:6-7

About the Photos

These were actually the only photos that I took with my camera during our whole trip. Of course, we were only gone a total of 54 hours, so there was not much time for photo taking. And I did take a few other photos with my phone, of course.

Frequent readers probably tire of my saying this, but these photos, especially the ones with us people in them, were made possible by shooting in Raw format. As you might imagine, we came out looking a little dark against that bright background. But running the Raw files through Luminar AI saved them. And made us look better.

Photo: Each photo is a single Raw exposure, processed in Luminar AI. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Sony Alpha A7 II
Lens: Sony FE 28-70mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS Lens
Date: April 10, 2021
Location: Somewhere in Kansas