A Wintery Kansas

Kansas is a very interesting place. With hundreds of miles of flat land around, and little water, it is a place where temperatures change very quickly. Those of the family who have memories of Kiribati will remember that the biggest thermal flywheel in the world is the Pacific Ocean.


At left is a photo of the Bonriki International Airport in Tarawa, Kiribati.

It takes huge amounts of energy to heat up water, or it gives up huge amounts of energy as it cools down. That is why the temperature in Kiribati has been 85 degrees “plus or minus three degrees” for the whole time that records have been kept: coolest temperature was 82 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest 88 degrees. Day and night, 365 days a year.

On the other side of the picture is the “Empty Quarter” in the Arabian Peninsula. That is the area to the South of Israel where we believe the Lehi colony traveled on their way to Bountiful.


At right is a picture of the Arabian Peninsula through which Lehi and his family traveled down to the southeastern coast to a place they called Bountiful.

Nephi wrote that they did wade through much affliction as they traveled. Part of that might have been because the temperature changes so rapidly there. It is common to rise to the 90s or even over 100 degrees in the daytime, then drop to below freezing at night. Such changes would lead to "much affliction."

Well to get back to Kansas. Last Saturday it was very warm for the end of January. We enjoyed being outside with just a suit coat on. Earlier in the week we had washed the car to get the salt off. (We picked that up in Utah – that is why the capital of Utah is called the Salt Lake City! (LOL) Even Sunday was pleasant during the day time. But in the evening we began to feel stronger winds. (I have to say "stronger," because there is almost always some wind in Kansas. Five mph winds aren’t even noticed here. Even fifteen mph hardly attracts attention. But these were in excess of 25 mph, and there were gusts up to 40, 45, and even 50. As you could expect, such winds brought change. By the time it was dark there was snow in the wind, though by morning it didn’t amount to an inch. But with the winds, that snow was constantly in motion throughout the night and through the day today.


Just for fun this is a photo of some antique farm equipment and old automobiles with other stuff that we passed on our way home. This is a classic "Red Neck" Kansas farm, and we saw dozens of them as we drove here. Kansas must be the antique Meca of America.

We got the handheld ham radios out of the car finally, and found the local NOAA weather channel. We immediately heard a winter weather advisory. “Cold weather is approaching” APPROACHING she said. It was already way below freezing at between 0 and 5 degrees. “Avoid travel if possible, particularly after sundown. Below zero temperatures and strong sustained winds up to fifty miles per hour will result in a wind chill of 30 degrees below zero.”

Well the sun has set, and we’ve come home after visiting with some people earlier in the day. We tried several other homes on our list, but didn’t find anyone home. We have decided to use the evening refining our lists and writing some notes about the people we have visited. We expect to stay inside unless we get a spiritual push to go out again.

On the way home from the last house we went to, we decided to go on a back road through the South part of town. We crossed the Arkansas River a couple of times in this wandering.

To the right notice the bridge over the Arkansas River which is bone-dry and a grainery in the background. The river is dry because all the water has been drained off in eastern Colorado and western Kansas for irrigation. There is water in the Arkansas river in Colorado and in Dodge City, Kansas, just not here in Garden City.

You might be interested in a few facts about this river. The following is copied from the Wikipedia: The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. The Arkansas generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. At 1,469 miles (2,364 km), it is the sixth longest river in the United States, the second-longest tributary in the Mississippi-Missouri system, and the 45th longest river in the world. Its origin is in the Rocky Mountains in Lake County, Colorado, near Leadville, and its mouth is at Napoleon, Arkansas. The Arkansas River drainage basin covers nearly 170,000 sq mi (440,300 km²). In terms of volume, the river is much smaller than both the Missouri and Ohio Rivers, with a mean discharge of roughly 41,000 cubic feet per second (1,200 m3/s). The Arkansas from its headwaters down to the 100th meridian west formed part of the US-Mexico border from the Adams-Onís Treaty (in force 1821) until the Texas Annexation or Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo. (i.e. it was the border when the Mormon Pioneers started out for Utah.)

Continuing from the Wikipedia: Water flow in the Arkansas River (as measured in central Kansas) has dropped from approximately 248 cubic feet per second (7 m³/s) average from 1944-1963 to 53 cubic feet per second (1.5 m³/s) average from 1984–2003, largely because of the pumping of groundwater for irrigation in eastern Colorado and western Kansas.



Here at left is another picture of the "dry" Arkansas River with a communications tower in the background. Such towers are very common here in Garden City. Towers are everywhere.

Now this last part is what was interesting. In central Kansas they have measurable water flowing, but here in Western Kansas the stream bed is absolutely dry. Bone dry! With RV trails running around where the water used to be. There may have been flowing water here in 2003, but there's none now.

An interesting thing we hope to be able to see some time is that in Dodge City an hour or so away down river they have water in the river again. (Yep, that’s the same Dodge that was in the Gunsmoke TV shows.) And there was water in the river in Colorado (I mean in the Arkansas River in Colorado. Of course there is water in the Colorado River too, but we’re learning about the Arkansas River here, and it is bone dry here in the South Western part of Kansas.) There is water in the stream both upstream from us and downstream from us, But nothing here. Isn't that interesting?

Now the Wikipedia article says that in central Kansas (probably meaning in Dodge City) there is about 54 cubic feet of water per second, and that is about one fifth of what it used to be before they started pumping ground water to water the crops in Eastern Colorado and here in Kansas. But it’s winter! It’s cold outside. And the only thing we’ve seen for a hundred miles is the dead-looking light tan colored dry grass of winter.


Here is a photo of a dry and brown Kansas field. Can you see the oil pump in the left of the picture? It was even pumping when we took the picture.

We haven’t seen an irrigation sprinkler in operation even once since we got here. (That would have been cute! Spraying Icicles!) So how come there’s no water in the river here? They are certainly not pumping underground water to water the fields at this time of year. Keep reading this blog and at some future date there may be more given on this intriguing subject.

We’ve had several meetings with the local leaders, and they’ve given us several lists of people to visit. Already our visits have led to a few appointments to go back and teach the families. We worked hard to prepare for our first teaching appointment, and it was a wonderful experience. Our decision was to teach about the pre-existence, and quote scriptures that describe attributes of God and what it was like to be there with Him. The goal was to give them reasons to desire to return there so they would see reason to live worthy of that opportunity. Both the husband and wife were deeply touched. They both testified they felt the Spirit. We have another appointment with them this week. Unfortunately they didn’t come to church Sunday. Neither did any of the other less active families that we had met with. However, we have had a dozen or more invitations to meet with more active members, and it is a wonderful experience to meet people in their homes, then see them at church. We’re looking forward to seeing some of the less active come back sometime in the future.



Here is a picture of our very industrious Zone leaders, Elder Lewis at left and Elder Murphy at right. They keep us on track by helping us almost very day. A new convert, Kirk Wilson, who was confirmed on Sunday, is in the middle.