Day 20 - Thursday May 31st - Guymon, OK to Liberal, KS

Distance:  39.6 miles

Elevation Gain:   +370 ft. or 9.3 ft./mile

Net elevation change: -282 ft.

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Short, straight and slightly downhill sums up this route. Even better we had a tailwind and not the forcasted cross/headwinds. It almost qualified as a rest day. We didn't leave Guymon until 9 am and at about mile 34 we crossed our fifth state line and entered our sixth state. Even with a stop at the Mid-America Air Museum in Liberal, we still got to the hotel too early to check in. Perfect excuse to get some lunch at Angie's Barbecue Food Truck across from the hotel. Got an excellent barbecue sausage sandwich.  Turns out Angie also catered our dinner of ribs, chicken, corn-on-the-cob, beans, green beans, coleslaw and potato salad. Went back for seconds on the ribs, corn and coleslaw.  Pretty sure this was the best dinner so far on the tour.

Last night there were six pickup trucks from Seaboard Foods in the hotel parking lot and two miles into the ride we passed a large Seaboard Foods Processing Plant.

According to the Seaboard Foods website the business can be summed up in their saying “From Pigs to Pork”.  This is a relatively new company coming into existence in the 1990's as Seaboard Farms with farms in Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and Texas. The farm operations today include genetic and commercial breeding all the way through finishing farms, the final stage before “harvesting”. Today these farm operations produce 4 million hogs a year making Seaboard the third largest pork producer in the US. The Guyman Oklahoma facility opened in 1995 and it is the second newest plant in the US. It has operated at full capacity since 1997 and is in the top ten of US processors.

At the 8-mile mark we passed through the small town of Optima with a population of about 350 that came to be around 1885 as a ranching area. The town name comes from the Latin word meaning “best possible result”. 

This is followed by the small town of Hooker at the 18-mile mark and the site of our only SAG stop of the the day at the combination Chamber of Commerce/ souvenir shop. Hooker, whose town motto is “It’s a location, not a vocation” is a town of about 1900. The name pays tribute to a local cattle foreman by the name of John “Hooker” Threlkeld who settled in the area in 1873. He earned his nickname because he was such a good roper he could ride quietly into a herd, drop a tight, small, and fast loop from either side of his horse and catch calves standing next to their mothers.  

Actress Sandra Giles, best known for "It Happened at the World’s Fair" opposite Elvis Presley, was born in Hooker.

Here are some pictures from the ride into Hooker.

Thought we had a farm/ranch (above). Turned out to be a used truck parts yard (below).

I haven't quite got accustomed to seeing grain elevators lining the roadway in between the local burger joint and the gas station. 

Next up was the small town of Tyrone at mile 29, a town of about 750 people that came into existence when the new railroad built holding pens and loading chutes. It grew rapidly as a shipping point for cattle and grain.

Hearing about the  Hobo Truck Stop at mile 32 conjures up images of hobos riding the rails which run parallel to US 54. The front of the stop reinforces that image.

Some other shots from the Tyrone area.

At mile 34 we cross into Kansas and the first thing we see is Jimmie Rogers Livestock, a livestock hauling company, but the sign welcoming us to Kansas is another mile down the road.

At mile 38 we get to Liberal and US 54 becomes Pancake Blvd. I can’t help but wonder how that name was chosen. 

Since it was so early, a number of us go on a side trip to the Mid-America Air Museum located on the grounds of the former Army Air Corp Airfield used for training all B-24 Liberator pilots during WW II. This air museum houses about 100 planes and is the largest in Kansas and fifth largest in the US. The museum got started when the late Colonel Tom Thomas, Jr. donated over 50 aircraft from his personal collection.

Some pictures from this impressive air museum. Ironically they do not have a B-24 Liberator on display.

Three quarter scale replica of a P-51 Mustang (above).

Sneak Peek at Tomorrow

83 miles in total to Dodge City, KS. The first 61 of those miles will be to the northeast on US 54 and then we head due north on US 283 for the balance of the ride. Looks like it will be hot with starting temps in the low 70's but getting up to 104 at 4 pm in Dodge City. The wind forecast hasn't been right in days, so I'm not even looking.  I know we will have wind. We are in Kansas after all.

Dodge City is the county seat of Ford County, Kansas with a population of about 27,400. It is named after Fort Dodge which was originally a campground for wagons traveling along the Santa Fe Trail. The city is famous as wild frontier town of the Old West and is often referred to as “the Cowboy Capital of the World”; “Wicked Little City” and “King of Cowtowns”.